[ANN] eXist-db 4.11.1, 5.5.1, and 6.1.0 released

Dear eXist-db users,

After almost a year since our last releases, I am delighted to
announce the release of eXist-db versions 6.1.0, 5.5.1, and 4.11.1.

eXist-db 6.x.x is our main active line of development, and we have
recommended this version series for all users for some time now.
eXist-db 6.1.0 includes numerous improvements, optimisations, and bug
fixes. In particular it adds a number of additional functions from
XQuery 3.1 that were previously missing, including: fn:transform,
fn:default-language, fn:format-integer, fn:round, fn:path,
fn:collation-key, fn:n:element-with-id, fn:nilled, fn:uri-collection,
and map:find. With these additions, eXist-db 6.1.0 now supports all
XQuery 3.1 functions.

For those users already on the 6.x.x series, eXist-db 6.1.0 is
backwards binary compatible with previous 6.x.x versions, which should
make upgrading simple with no changes required to XQuery or XSLT
application code. For those users migrating from 4.x.x or 5.x.x
versions to 6.x.x a full backup and restore of the database will be
required and possibly some small changes to XQuery and XSLT
application code.

The 4.x.x and 5.x.x series of eXist-db should be considered
deprecated, our new releases of 4.x.x and 5.x.x include a number of
crucial bug fixes for those users who cannot yet upgrade to 6.x.x. The
5.x.x series also includes a small handful of selected features and
improvements that have been backported from the 6.x.x series.

Finally, for those users considering a major upgrade from 4.x.x or
5.x.x to 6.x.x, you may wish to wait for the upcoming release of
eXist-db 7.0.0. This release will update eXist-db from Java 8 to Java
17, and greatly improve its XQuery compliance with the W3C
specifications. The improvements in compliance mean that some small
changes to your XQuery application code may be required, but we
believe that this is most worthwhile. We expect to release eXist-db
7.0.0 with Q1 of 2023.

The full release notes and downloads can be found here:

1. eXist-db 6.1.0 - https://github.com/eXist-db/exist/releases/tag/eXist-6.1.0

2. eXist-db 5.5.1 - https://github.com/eXist-db/exist/releases/tag/eXist-5.5.1

3. eXist-db 4.11.1 - https://github.com/eXist-db/exist/releases/tag/eXist-4.11.1

As well as thanking all contributors, I would also like to especially
thank the Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State,
https://history.state.gov, which commissioned several of the
improvements in eXist 6.1.0 through Evolved Binary
https://www.evolvedbinary.com and eXist Solutions
https://www.existsolutions.com, and worked with Evolved Binary to make
this release a reality.

Best wishes. Adam.

-- 
Adam Retter

eXist Core Developer
{ United Kingdom }
[email protected]