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Usually one of releases in particular year is chosen to be a Long Term Support release (LTS) which means that community will maintain it way longer than till next release (3-6 years). This version is typically used as a base for commercial products or Linux Distributions.

DPDK

The DPDK development process is modeled (loosely) on the Linux Kernel development model. The process is described in more details here.

Typical release cycle is 3 months long.

All changes are reviewed in a public mailing list with the help of patchwork tool in a similar fashion to the linux kernel.

Right after the previous release is out the merge window for a new release is open. All new features must be introduced within the merge window.

Last month of every release is considered a bug fixing period and no new functionality will enter the tree within this period.

Stable and LTS releases are described here.

Every major release of DPDK can be marked as a stable release if there is a volunteer who would like to maintain it. A stable release can be maintained from 3 months up to a year.

A stable release can be designated as an LTS release based on community agreement and a commitment from a maintainer. The current policy is that each year’s November (X.11) release will be maintained as an LTS for 2 years.