Preparing for the Heimdal 7 Release

Dear Heimdal Community,

	A team consisting of staff from Two Sigma Open Source and AuriStor
	is starting the release process for Heimdal version 7.  We have
	changed the version of the master branch to 6.99.1 which will be
	considered our beta.  During the beta period, we will be fixing
	remaining issues.  In addition, we are asking for the community
	to submit any final patches or bug reports before the 1st of
	November.

	We expect to publish the first release candidate on or near the
	11th of November.


Why 7?

	We are adopting a new versioning scheme.

		o  Each feature release will have a new major number.

		o  The minor will be a patch level.  A value of 0 is
		   reserved for release candidates.  A value of 99 is
		   reserved for development.

		o  Stable releases will not have a micro number.

		o  Micro numbers will be incremented in release candidates
		   and development as needed.

	For example, the first release candidate will be 7.0.1.  The next
	7.0.2, then 7.0.3, etc.  When the final release candidate is
	deemed production quality, it will be renumbered as 7.1.
	All bug fixes will then be 7.2, 7.3, etc.

	New development for Heimdal 8 will be 7.99.1, 7.99.2, 7.99.3, etc.

	When the next feature release is issued its version number will
	start with 8.0.1 as the first release candidate and the first
	release will be 8.1.


What will be in 7?

	We have a lot of major improvements since our last official
	release, including:

		o  hcrypto is now thread safe on all platforms and
		   as much as possible hcrypto now uses the operating
		   system's preferred crypto implementation ensuring
		   that optimized hardware assisted implementations of
		   AES-NI are used.

		o  RFC 6113 Generalized Framework for Kerberos
		   Pre-Authentication (FAST).

		o  iprop has been revamped to fix a number of race
		   conditions that could lead to inconsistent replication.

		o  The KDC process now uses a multi-process model improving
		   resiliency and performance.

		o  AES Encryption with HMAC-SHA2 for Kerberos 5
		   draft-ietf-kitten-aes-cts-hmac-sha2-11


	For a more detailed list of changes please see:

		https://github.com/heimdal/heimdal/blob/master/NEWS

	which contains a bullet point summary of the major security,
	feature and bug fix changes that have been applied to the Heimdal
	source tree over the last four years since the release of 1.5.3.

	The list is currently not complete and we will be reviewing the
	git log to add features and bug fixes to the list before we make
	the final release.

	We expect that the ABI for libgssapi and libkrb5 will be unchanged
	from the prior release (1.5.3).  If any differences are discovered
	during the release process, we will then fix them if practical
	or document the differences in the release notes.

	And, again, we aren't quite finished.  Organizations and
	individuals wishing to submit changes to Heimdal for this
	release are encouraged to do so no later than 1 November 2016.


The release process:

	Each release candidate will be given two weeks for testing
	and usability feedback.  If a serious bug is uncovered during
	the review period then a new release candidate will be issued
	once the bug has been fixed.  If after two weeks from candidate
	release no new showstopping bugs are uncovered, then the release
	candidate will be declared final.

-- 
    Roland C. Dowdeswell