YUI Roadmap

by Eric Miraglia and george puckett; Last Updated: August 13, 2008

How to evaluate dates associated with milestones described in this document: The YUI development team has consistently issued minor and patch releases within two weeks of the target once a date is established. The target date is best thought of as being the first date in a release window about three weeks in duration. Once announced, there is a very good likelihood that we'll release during that window. For major releases — for example, for the 3.x release process and the open source infrastructure initiative — dates listed here are planning targets and are less reliable than release-date forecasts in the 2.x development program.

YUI 2.x planning:

Next Release: 2.6.0

Summary: With this release, most beta and experimental components will be brought to GA, including (most importantly) DataTable and Rich Text Editor. Core objectives:

1. GA release for DataTable, with refinement of current feature set and stabilization of all remaining problem areas.
2. GA for most other beta/experimental components, including the GA for Rich Text Editor.
3. Address all high-priority bugs in the 2.5.x family and flag as WONTFIX those issues that we don't anticipate addressing. While it is almost certain that there will be a series of 2.6.x maintenance releases that address additional bugs, we hope in this timeframe to be proactively identifying existing issues that are not planned for redress in 2.x.
4. YUI Carousel, which was a slip from 2.5.0.
5. Premliminary IE8 testing and support, as applicable. It's likely, based on what we know today about the IE8 schedule, that full IE8 support will be addressed in a 2.6.x or 2.7.0 release, but this is the release cycle where we'll start looking closely at IE8's available partner builds.

Date: September 30, 2008.

Component	Details	Developer
Carousel	New component. Carousel component based on Bill Scott's carousel with some additions to better conform to carousel design pattern. Development of this component is approaching completion. We are in the planning stages of posting a Carousel preview ahead of the 2.6.0 release for community feedback. More details will be posted here in the coming weeks.	Gopal Venkatesan
DataTable	Changes: - Stabilize scrollability - Stabilize key handling - bug fixes	Jenny Han Donnelly, with contributions from Satyam and Luke Smith
Drag & Drop	Changes: - Added option for use of shim.	Dav Glass
All	IE8 support, pending a test-worthy build of IE8. (If we can't vouch for IE8 support in this release, IE8 will itself necessitate a subsequent patch or minor release on 2.x for that specific purpose.	All

YUI 3.x planning:

YUI 3.x represents the next major increment of the YUI Library. We've been working hard on YUI 3.x since late 2007 with the goal of providing a more modular, more consistent library platform that will carry the benefits of library feature-richness while allowing you to have less unused code on the page when using library components. YUI 3.x, when it reaches GA, will provide benefits in speed, size, extensibility, and security. We're still very early in this process, but YUI 3.0 Preview Release 1 is available for you to explore today and to provide feedback on.

Next Release: 3.0.0 PR2

Summary: 3.0.0 PR2 is a developer preview that provides adds in some additional components, including the first release of the 3.x widget framework. Objectives of the 3.0 preview series include:

1. Begin process of getting community feedback on the new architecture.
2. Begin process of getting community involved in development on top of the new 3.x architecture.

Projected Date: October 2008. Per the note above, 3.x projects represent our current targets but are more likely to slip than dates associated with the more mature 2.x code line.

Component	Details	Developer
YUI Core	Updates to YUI, Dom, Node and Event.	Matt Sweeney, Adam Moore and others
Component Framework	Updates to Attribute and Base, along with new components of the Widget framework	Satyen Desai and others
Sample Widget(s)	One or two sample widgets will ship with PR2 to prove out the new Widget/component framework.	Todd Kloots and others

Movement to 2-way Open Source:

YUI was released as free-source software under a BSD license in 2006. During its development, we've seen a fantastic community develop around the library, with more than 10,000 deveopers discussing YUI actively in the community forum. YUI became open for community contirbutions beginning in June, 2008, and with the 2.6.0 release we are seeing the first major community contributions becoming part of the YUI distribution. These contributions are being made by developers who have signed and returned a preliminary rights-assignment document (pending the completion of YUI's formal CLA) and have found a YUI committer to sponsor and code review their contributions (you can propose ideas and seek committer sponsorship on the YUI Contributors forum).

The current infrastructure, however, is not suitably conducive to contributions outside the core YUI team. In Q3 2008, we are dedicating significant effort within the team to create the necessary infrastructure for contributors at every level to have a good end-to-end experience working with the YUI codebase. This effort will begin in earnest after we ship the public preview of the YUI 3.x codeline. This effort will result in a public repository for YUI project code, beginning with the YUI 2.x and 3.x codelines; documentation of standards and practices for YUI code submision; and public availability of the build toolchain used in preparing YUI source for checkin and distribution.

If you're looking to contribute to YUI today, please join the Contributors group and put your proposal in front of the committer community. We look forward to debuting the more robust platform for contributions in Q308.