🧊 Feature freeze time

[Zughy]

What's feature freeze?

It's a time in development where no new features nor enhancements are accepted. Basically, only bugfixes and essential changes are allowed

Why?

There is always a chance to introduce new bugs when introducing a new feature. A bug can be small and quite insignificant, but it can also be something big that causes problems like crashes. We reserve a period of time before each release to focus on catching and fixing bugs, as this drastically reduces the possibility of releasing a broken version

How long does it last?

Approximately, a couple weeks. However, it might happen that solving a bug requires more than that, so a more precise answer would be: until everything is fixed

What happens to already open feature PRs? And how about someone opening a new feature PR whilst in feature freeze?

They'll be considered when the feature freeze is over, and the release has been rolled. Exceptions won't be made, as we want to improve Minetest as much as you do, but we also want to offer a stable program that doesn't scare people away with crashes