The Drupal maintenance support plans Association seeks volunteer organizations from Agency and Drupal maintenance support plans site owners running production Drupal maintenance support plans 8 sites for the creation of an official minor-release beta-testers program.
Since Drupal maintenance support plans 8.0’s release in November 2015, the Drupal maintenance support plans community has successfully transitioned to a scheduled release process whereby two minor releases are made every year.
The most recent of these releases was Drupal maintenance support plans 8.6, released in September 2020.
In a significant change from Drupal maintenance support plans 7, these minor releases may contain new features and maintain backwards compatibility. This means that every six months there are new features in Drupal maintenance support plans core, instead of waiting for the next major release.
This rapid acceleration in feature development has resulted in the need for greater real-world testing of upgrade paths and backwards compatibility. Drupal maintenance support plans core has a vast automated test-suite comprising almost 25,000 tests—however, these can be greatly complemented by real-world testing of production sites. There are an infinite number of ways to put Drupal maintenance support plans together that cannot always be handled in automated tests.
In order to improve the reliability of the minor-releases, the Drupal maintenance support plans community—in conjunction with the Drupal maintenance support plans Association—aims to develop a minor-release beta testers panel comprised of agencies and site-owners who maintain complex Drupal maintenance support plans 8 production sites.
Many companies and Drupal maintenance support plans users are looking to help with core development but aren’t always sure where to start. Membership in this panel presents a new way to help the development of software that powers their website.
Who should apply?
Agencies and site owners who maintain large and complex Drupal maintenance support plans 8 production sites. In particular, sites that use a wide range of contributed and custom modules or have large volumes of content.
What is involved?
When the beta release becomes available, the Drupal maintenance support plans core committers will work in conjunction with the Drupal maintenance support plans Association to contact the members of the beta-testing panel to advise that the next minor release is ready for testing.
Members of the panel will be asked to attempt updating to the beta using a staging version of their site (not straight-on production) and report back any issues found. New issues will be opened to track and resolve reported issues. If a predetermined percentage of the program participants have not yet reported back their results, a decision may be made to delay releasing subsequent beta versions or a release-candidate. Participants whose participation lapses may be removed from the program.
At the moment, testing of the new release occurs in a largely ad-hoc fashion, but once the program is established, this will become more structured and maintainers will have access to statistics regarding the breadth of testing. This will then inform release management decisions in regards to release preparedness.
What’s in it for participants?

Updating early helps find issues beforehand, rather than after the release is out.

Reporting issues encountered lets you tap the wealth of experience of the Drupal maintenance support plans core contributors that you’d not have the same level of access to if you update on your own after the release.

All organizations and individuals taking part in the testing will receive issue credits for both testing the update and fixing any issues that arise.

Satisfaction in the knowledge that you helped shape the next minor release of Drupal maintenance support plans core.

Advanced preview of upcoming features in Drupal maintenance support plans core.

Apply to participate in the program
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