Defining a word for all current releases

[bnb]

In discussing with a friend, I realized that we don't have an actual word for the corpus of releases that are currently being worked on / not EOL.

Here's a sentence as an example:

Node.js versions 6, 8, 10 are the only [word] releases currently. Soon Node.js version 11 will be be too.

Both of us instinctively reached for "Active" but that's currently a word used as a part of LTS terminology.

Node.js versions 6, 8, 10 are the only active releases currently. Soon Node.js version 11 will be be too.

As far as I know, we don't have a word that defines this. I think it's a useful word to define, as I've reached for some kind of word like this several times.

Some possibilities:

• Circulated
• Supported
• Operating
• Effective

[vsemozhetbyt]

"Supported" seems to be the most exact and substantial word? Others seem a bit evaluative and fuzzy.

[MylesBorins]

I always say maintained

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On Sat, Sep 15, 2018, 4:50 PM Vse Mozhet Byt ***@***.***> wrote: "Supported" seems to be the most exact and substantial word? Others seem a bit evaluative and fuzzy. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#359 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAecV4Q31y09bdiJ2IiQLLNq0L3ShT-qks5ubXYRgaJpZM4Wqjg2> .

[targos]

I say supported.

[BridgeAR]

Both, supported and maintained sounds good.

[joyeecheung]

I'd go for supported instead of maintained to avoid confusion about "maintenance mode"

[mhdawson]

I prefer supported.

[DrEVILish]

Current Releases
Maintained Releases

[bnb]

@joyeecheung valid point, agreed!

@DrEVILish extending @joyeecheung's point, we have the "Current" release line which is the release line that's in active development. Current releases (and maintained releases) could theoretically get easily confused.

Seems like Supported is the only word that doesn't collide with another term and has... support? 😁

[targos]

@bnb what's the next step? Would you like to document this somewhere?

[bnb]

@targos yes, documenting that somewhere would be ideal. It would be awesome if we could have a Glossary section of the README.md that included all the terms we use (including this) 🤔

[rvagg]

I say "actively supported release lines" whenever I do security releases that need to cover them all. I think also if you're going to clarify this terminology you should be clear about "releases" and "release lines" too cause that gets messy.

[BridgeAR]

I added this to the release agenda to decide on a specific wording that we then use consistently.

[Trott]

"actively-supported release lines" seems good, although it raises the question what the "inactively-supported" or "passively-supported" release lines are. Does it mean "maintenance" release lines are covered or not?

For that reason, I think my preference is for "supported release lines" or "currently-supported release lines" as that's what the user cares about--that a particular release line is supported.

[mhdawson]

We settled on "maintained" here: https://github.com/nodejs/package-maintenance/blob/master/docs/drafts/PACKAGE-SUPPORT.md

So my preference would be to us maintained

The definition there was "Node.js versions which are not EOL"

[Trott]

We settled on "maintained" here: https://github.com/nodejs/package-maintenance/blob/master/docs/drafts/PACKAGE-SUPPORT.md

So my preference would be to us maintained

The definition there was "Node.js versions which are not EOL"

Maybe, but isn't that for packages rather than package versions?. It is definitely idiomatic to say that a package (or other piece of software) is maintained rather than supported. IMO it is less idiomatic for a runtime version (or an OS version or package version) to be described as "maintained" rather than "supported".

I also think "maintained" implies less of a commitment to overall quality than "supported". That may be a feature rather than a bug, depending on your perspective. But "maintained' does make it sound like "we're keeping it running but not much more".

I won't say people don't ever use that terminology differently (because they totally do). And I won't argue against "maintained" strenuously. It's adequate for this situation. But I think "supported" is more idiomatic and a little bit better.

One last bit of evidence for the idiomatic nature of "supported". I typed "version of node.js that" into Google to see what the autocomplete would be. Sure enough: "supported" showed up in three different variations and "maintained" not at all. With "Windows" instead of "node.js", "supported" appears twice and "maintained" not at all.

[Edited the preceding paragraph. Repeated in an incognito browser so my search history wouldn't affect things. Changed results a bit.]

[BethGriggs]

I think I prefer "supported" to "maintained" - partially due to the overlap with our terminology "maintenance". I also think "supported" works well with our use of "long-term support"- where LTS versions are a subset of the "supported" versions.

[mhdawson]

We discussed in the package-maintenance meeting today and I've submitted a PR to change maintained to supported based on this feedback. nodejs/package-maintenance#257

Reading the rest of the doc as I did the update I also see that there would have been potential for confusion if we'd continued to use maintained as that word is used throughout the doc and not necessarily as it was defined in the table.

[mhdawson]

PR also clarifies a bit what 'all' means as it's intended to cover support all versions regardless of EOL status.

[BethGriggs]

Next steps here are to PR the definitions to the nodejs/release and nodejs/node documentation

[mhdawson]

@BethGriggs I'll volunteer to PR into nodejs/release and ndoejs/node doc unless somebody else wants to do it. Do we just want to add the definition of supported or more than that?

[BethGriggs]

@mhdawson - I think at some point it would be worthwhile creating a clear "definition"/"glossary" section for Release terminology, including definitions of "Active LTS", "Maintenance LTS", "Supported", etc. But we could just add the one-sentence definition in the meantime if you're happy to volunteer for that?

[dominykas]

I think it would be great to define all the keywords there, standardize on that a little? There's multiple use cases for them - upgrade policies, CI settings, etc.

[mhdawson]

@BethGriggs happy to volunteer, will look at it next week. @dominykas I agree will look to see how I can fit the list in.

[mhdawson]

Sorry for the delay, still have this on my list.

[mhdawson]

I went through the existing doc a while back to find if there were any references in ndoejs/node and nodejs/release that needed to be updated and did not find any.

I guess the next step is to create a new section with the terminology.

[mhdawson]

For reference this is the list in the PACKAGE-SUPPORT.md section based on the feedback from this discussion: https://github.com/nodejs/package-maintenance/blob/master/docs/drafts/PACKAGE-SUPPORT.md#support-target

[BethGriggs]

We've updated our documentation in the README to state that we will use the word 'supported':

The term 'supported release lines' will be used to refer to all release lines that are not End-of-Life.

Package Maintenance are also adopting this terminology.