There has been quite a bit of confusion about the meaning of the various versions of Dabo that are available. The purpose of this page is to define the current terminology used, and the rules for release numbering. If you think you might have suggestions as to a better approach, the page for that discussion is DaboReleaseIdeas.
Development
Development releases aren't really released, but are made available continuously as the developers make changes. Due to this dynamic nature, there is a very real likelihood that the code may contain bugs, especially in areas where current development is happening.
There are two ways to get the development version of Dabo: using Subversion, and by downloading the nightly tarballs, which are available on the Dabo Download page: http://dabodev.com/download.
The upside to using the Development code is that you get the latest and greatest version of Dabo, with any enhancements and improvements made since the previous official release. The downside, as mentioned above, is that you are more likely to run into bugs. When you do, though, the main thing to remember is: Don't Panic! Post a message to the email lists with an explanation of what you were doing when the error occurred, along with the traceback from Python (if possible). Most bugs are fixed within a day whenever possible.
Stable
Every so often after some major development activity, we stop active development and focus on bug-fixing and testing. When that has reached a point that we are confident that all the new features and code is as bug-free as possible, we make a release. We have as our goal to make these releases as frequent as possible; lately we've been averaging about 2 a year.
Once code is released, no new features or behaviors will be added to it. The only changes that will ever be made will be critical bug fixes. Anything else will be available only in the Development code, and will not be available in Stable until the next major release.
The stable releases are available from the Dabo Download page: http://dabodev.com/download.
The upside to using the Stable code releases is that you have very little likelihood of encountering errors. You can also count on features and implementations not changing. The downside is that, as an actively-developed project, you won't have any of the newest enhancements and features available. Also, it is far more likely that any of the visual development tools will not work for you, since they drive much of the framework enhancements, and thus require the latest Development code in order to run.
Version Numbers
Until we reach our official version 1.0 release, we are using the following version numbering system:
0.mmm[.fff]
where "mmm" and "fff" are numbers between 1 and 999. "mmm" is the major point release number, and each point release will be one greater than the previous. "fff" is the bugfix number, and is likewise incremented. After a point release, the bugfix numbering is reset back to zero.
Note that under this system release do not follow mathematical conventions; e.g., 0.5 is not halfway to 1.0. Also, you can have a release after 0.9 that is 0.10, followed by 0.11, etc.