DECISION: Cutoff dates for bug reports.

[namida]

Earlier, I already set a cutoff for new suggestions, as part of the efforts to finalize NL. I am now going to start the next step of planning a cutoff for bug reports.

I did earlier say that I would delay this decision until V12.13.0 was released, but I was not expecting such a huge window between 12.12.X and 12.13.X, so I have decided to bring this forward.

Similar to the cutoffs for suggestions, I will do this in a few phases. Dates may change, but there will not be a sudden cutoff out of nowhere - should any decision be made to move these forward, a window of at least a couple of weeks will be given before it takes effect.

Phase 1 - This is already in effect. When this comes into effect, no new reports of any physics bugs will be accepted, unless the bug is newly introduced in the latest major stable version at the time (or an experimental / RC that is more recent than the latest stable version) - either because the bug relates to a new feature (eg. the new object types), or because the bug is a side effect of another change or bugfix. UI bugs may continue to be reported as normal.

Phase 2 - This is already in effect. When this comes into effect, no new bug reports (whether physics or otherwise) will be accepted unless either (a) the bug was introduced, either as a side effect of another bug fix or in relation to a new feature, in the latest major stable version (or an experimental / RC that is more recent than the latest stable version) at the time, or (b) the bug causes a crash or hang, or causes data loss.

Phase 3 - This will come into effect from 2024-11-20 (three months after V12.13.0 went stable). When this comes into effect, no new bug reports will be accepted whatsoever for stable versions (reports may still be accepted for any future experimental / RC versions).


Much like with the phasing out of accepting suggestions, this applies ONLY to the player; bugs with the editor may continue to be reported. Also, like with suggestions, this only applies to new reports; any reports that already have been made, but not yet fixed, at the time, will remain open.

[namida]

A couple of updates.

1st July has now passed, so no new bug reports are being accepted for any kind of bug, unless one of the following is the case:
- The bug is newly introduced (either as a side effect of another fix/change, or because it's a bug in a new feature) in V12.12.0, or a newer minor update, experimental or RC.
- The bug causes NeoLemmix to crash or hang.
- The bug causes data loss.

Also, I've removed the specified timeframe for Phase 3 for now. I'm keeping the options open for now, but my general thoughts is that I'll likely bring it into effect once we're at the point where major updates are mostly just for bugfixes that aren't suitable for minor updates, rather than introducing any significant new features.

[namida]

V12.13.0 has now gone stable. As such, bug reports now will only be accepted if:

- The bug is newly introduced (either as a side effect of another fix/change, or because it's a bug in a new feature) in V12.13.0 or later (ie: wasn't present in 12.12.5). To be clear, a bug being present in a V12.13.0-RC version does not disqualify it, as long as it was not present in V12.12.5.
- The bug causes NeoLemmix to crash or hang.
- The bug causes data loss.

Three months from today, all bug reports will be cut off (any that have been reported, but not yet fixed, at that time will still remain open) unless I see specific grounds for extending this.