To which Products does this Model apply?

• eSignAnyWhere and its components
  
  • except FileHoster and other components where release notes clearly state that another lifecycle model applies
• SIGNificant Server Platform main components
  • except Customization Service, and other components where release notes clearly state that another lifecycle model applies
  • Native clients and add-ons (Device Driver, Kiosk SDK, Native Client Apps for Mobile Platforms, MS Office Plugin etc) are not considered as main components. This lifecycle model therefore does not belong to them
• Other products where release notes explicitly refer to this lifecycle model

Principles

Namirial will publish several "Feature Stream" releases in a longer feature-stream period (typically an entire year). The final release of a feature-stream development, published typically around end of the year or beginning of the new year, contains fixes from additional hardening activities. Each of the feature-stream releases is qualified to receive additional hotfixes, if indicated by ticket classification and as long as defined by change management process. Some time after publishing the final release of the feature-stream development, after additional feedback was retrieved on that product version, the latest hotfix level of this version will be re-published as Long-Term-Support (LTS) version. There will be at least one LTS version every year. The LTS version is qualified to receive hotfixes for the longer maintenance period.

Namirial will try to minimize the necessity of defined breaking changes in the product. When necessary, breaking changes including reduced product functionality are allowed at the beginning of a new feature stream release cycle (i.e. before the very first version of a new feature-stream version is released) but not in between feature-stream releases which belong to the same major version number. Valid exceptions, where additional breaking changes are allowed, are:

• When a breaking change was announced at least one year in advance, e.g. API discontinuation
• When a breaking change is necessary to fix a security finding classified as "critical" or "high", if there is no other solution available with reasonable effort.

Breaking Changes will be documented in the product release notes.

Maintenance Period

Software Maintenance, i.e. the period in which hotfixes will be provided if qualified, is defined:

Product Discontinuation Policy

In general, a new product version will be published in time if a product discontinuation was not announced before.

Product discontinuation will be announced one year in advance. The announcement will be done in the product documentation.

From announcement on, Namirial may decide to release additional feature-stream releases or keep software maintenance for the feature stream release for the entire year. One year after announcement, software maintenance for the feature-stream releases will end.
On LTS versions, Namirial will provide the full software maintenance period, starting with the release date and defined for 2 years from LTS version release date on.