switch back to develop content

1 files changed, 40 insertions, 15 deletions

diff --git a/src/RELEASE.txt b/src/RELEASE.txt
index 0bb481d3..d13de570 100644
--- a/src/RELEASE.txt
+++ b/src/RELEASE.txt
@@ -1,47 +1,72 @@
-  A new SCons release, 2.4.0, is now available
+  A new SCons checkpoint release, 2.3.9.alpha.yyyymmdd, is now available
   on the SCons download page:
 
           http://www.scons.org/download.php
 
-  Here is a summary of the changes since 2.3.6:
+  XXX The primary purpose of this release ... XXX
+
+  A SCons "checkpoint release" is intended to provide early access to
+  new features so they can be tested in the field before being released
+  for adoption by other software distributions.
+
+  Note that a checkpoint release is developed using the same test-driven
+  development methodology as all SCons releases.  Existing SCons
+  functionality should all work as it does in previous releases (except
+  for any changes identified in the release notes) and early adopters
+  should be able to use a checkpoint release safely for production work
+  with existing SConscript files.  If not, it represents not only a bug
+  in SCons but also a hole in the regression test suite, and we want to
+  hear about it.
+
+  New features may be more lightly tested than in past releases,
+  especially as concerns their interaction with all of the other
+  functionality in SCons.  We are especially interested in hearing bug
+  reports about new functionality.
+
+  We do not recommend that downstream distributions (Debian, Fedora,
+  etc.) package a checkpoint release, mainly to avoid confusing the
+  "public" release numbering with the long checkpoint release names.
+
+  Here is a summary of the changes since 1.3.0:
 
   NEW FUNCTIONALITY
 
-    - None
+    - List new features (presumably why a checkpoint is being released)
 
   DEPRECATED FUNCTIONALITY
 
-    - None
+    - List anything that's been deprecated since the last release
 
   CHANGED/ENHANCED EXISTING FUNCTIONALITY
 
-    - None
+    - List modifications to existing features, where the previous behavior
+      wouldn't actually be considered a bug
 
   FIXES
 
-    - None
+    - List fixes of outright bugs
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
 
-    - Switched several core classes to use "slots", to
-      reduce the overall memory consumption in large
-      projects (fixes #2180, #2178, #2198)
-    - Memoizer counting uses decorators now, instead of
-      the old metaclasses approach.
+    - List improvements that wouldn't be visible to the user in the
+      documentation:  performance improvements (describe the circumstances
+      under which they would be observed), or major code cleanups
 
   PACKAGING
 
-    - Added new amd64 windows 64 bit installer
+    - List changes in the way SCons is packaged and/or released
 
   DOCUMENTATION
 
-    - None
+    - List any significant changes to the documentation (not individual
+      typo fixes, even if they're mentioned in src/CHANGES.txt to give
+      the contributor credit)
 
   DEVELOPMENT
 
-    - None
+    - List visible changes in the way SCons is developed
 
-  Thanks to Dirk Baechle, Andrew Featherstone for their contributions to this release.
+  Thanks to CURLY, LARRY, and MOE for their contributions to this release.
   Contributors are listed alphabetically by their last name.
 
 __COPYRIGHT__