# Major releases procedure

A major release consists of significant changes, that are not backwards compatible (i.e. breaking changes).

A major release must be reviewed and signed off by at least 2 members of the ontology team.

At this point a pre-release will be created from the release branch.

All partner platforms will be notified via the Releases mailing list. Partner platforms must respond confirming acceptance of the release before proceeding to public notification.

Any changes/fixes required will be applied to the release branch & the pre-release updated.

After the pre-release is accepted, the release branch will then be merged into the master branch & the release branch deleted.

A major release will then be notified (a minimum of 10 calendar days in advance of release) by broadcast on Slack (through the #releases channel) & GitHub.

After the appropriate notice period, the release will be marked as "Latest Release"\
\
A final mail will be sent to the Release Mailing List confirming completion of the release.


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