1. Schedule
  2. Versioning scheme
  3. Release candidates and beta releases

Tails has a time-based release schedule, aligned with Tor Browser release schedule, which itself depends on the Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) release schedule.

We publish a new version of Tails on each new release of Firefox, usually every 4 weeks.

On top of that, we occasionally publish an extra emergency release in order to quickly fix a critical security vulnerability that became publicly known or is being used in the wild. The most common example of this is when Mozilla publishes a "chemspill" release of Firefox.

See our actual release schedule.

Schedule

A typical release week looks like this:

  • Monday: get ready, initiate communication with the Applications team

  • Tuesday:

    1. Once a trustworthy-enough Tor Browser tarball is ready, a Tails Team member imports the new Tor Browser into a new MR, then ensures this MR passes our QA and is merged in time for the next steps.

    2. Mozilla announces the new Firefox ESR release.

    3. The Applications team announces the new Tor Browser release.

  • Wednesday:

    1. The release manager for this release does most of the release process.

    2. The RM and Tails Team members start doing QA on the candidate Tails images.

    3. A technical writer writes the release notes for the upcoming Tails release.

  • Thursday:

    1. The RM and Tails Team members finish doing QA on the candidate Tails images.

    2. The RM completes the release process, which includes announcing the new Tails release to the world.

Versioning scheme

  • We always increment the first number when switching to a new major release of Debian. When we do this we reset the second number to zero.

  • We may also increment the first number whenever it make sense for Tails only (user-visible changes).

  • The second number is incremented for every release that does not increment the first number.

  • We add an extra, third number for emergency releases.

Release candidates and beta releases

Most Tails stable releases are published directly, without a prior beta release or release candidate (RC). But some changes deserve more caution, in which case we often choose to release a beta or RC. See how to decide whether to release a beta or a RC.