Tom Eastep 2011 Thomas M. Eastep Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

Shorewall releases are identified by three numbers separated by periods (e.g., 4.4.16). The first two digits (e.g., 4.4) specify the major release number. The third number (e.g., 16) is the minor release number.

Traditionally, major releases have occurred roughly every two years, but as Shorewall has matured, new enhancements are routinely released in minor releases. Minor releases occur every 4 to 6 weeks. If a defect is discovered in a minor release for which there is no easy workaround or which can affect a large number of users, a bug-fix or point release is made. New minor and point releases are announced on the Shorewall Announcements mailing list and on the Shorewall Users mailing list. Current release information is also available on the Shorewall Home Page.

Beta releases have their three-number identifaction follow by "-BetaN" (e.g., 4.4.17-Beta3). Beta releases are made approximately weekly and are announced on the Shorewall Development mailing list and on the Shorewall Users mailing list. At the point where the new features in a release are frozen, the Beta releases give way to release candidates. These have the three-number identification followed by "-RCN" (e.g., 4.4.17-RC1). They are announced in the same way as the betas.