Version 8.0

Table of Contents:

New Features / Improvements in 8.0

All new features, improvements and bug fixes included in 8.0 can be found in the 8.0 Release Notes.

Priorities for 8.0

The following is an (unordered) list of new features that the DSpace Steering Group would like to see added to the DSpace 8.0 release. The overarching goal is to keep the 8.0 release smaller in size (in terms of new features), and find ways to help the community more easily upgrade to 7.x or 8.x.  See also RoadMap.

Feature(s)	Notes / Tickets	Priority	Volunteer(s)
COAR Notify support	Implementation of the COAR Notify protocol in DSpace 8	High	4Science and Harvard University
Correction service to enhance data quality (via OpenAIRE Graph)	https://4science.github.io/oaire-eld/ and https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/8184 (This is required to support COAR Notify, see above)	High	4Science
Migrate "REST-Based Quality Control Reports" to new REST API	https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/7641 (see linked PRs) NOTE: 8.0 will feature a BETA version of this feature.	High	Université Laval, Canada
Basic Duplicate Detection in Submission	https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/2749 and https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/9265 NOTE: This feature is a more simplistic version of Duplicate Detection. It is not the same as the DSpace-CRIS feature of the same name.	High	The Library Code
Any new features which empower users in the Admin User Interface	Various tickets, based on volunteers.  The exact tickets which will be completed will be based on what volunteers wish to claim for 8.0.  Any tickets on the 8.0 board which "empower admins" fall into this category.  Get in touch with Tim Donohue if you have questions or wish to volunteer for a ticket.	High	(Various institutions or volunteers)
Any features which existed in 6.x but missed the 7.x series of releases	Various tickets, based on volunteers.  Any community volunteer is welcome to "port" any feature that existed in the 6.x XMLUI or JSPUI 6.x to the 8.0 release. Get in touch with Tim Donohue if you have questions or wish to volunteer for a ticket.	High	(Various institutions or volunteers)
Bug fixes, accessibility fixes, performance improvements and dependency upgrades	In addition to new features, every new major release includes a number of bug/accessibility fixes, performance improvements and updates to dependencies (to avoid future security vulnerabilities).  Any bug fixes & accessibility fixes are also backported to past major releases (as much as possible).	High	(Various institutions or volunteers)

Tickets & Pull Requests to review for possible inclusion

All potential tickets & pull requests may be found on our 8.0 Project Board. 

• 8.0 Project Board: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/27

If there is a feature you wish to work on which is not on that 8.0 Project Board, please create a GitHub issue ticket to describe it (or find one if it exists) and contact Tim Donohue (via email or Slack) about possible inclusion in 8.0.

Keep in mind, even if a ticket/PR exists on the 8.0 Project Board, that does not guarantee it will be completed in time for 8.0.  We'll do our best to get it included, but all development & testing/reviewing is volunteer based.  You can help ensure a PR's inclusion by volunteering to help test or review the code! Any work that cannot be achieved in time for 8.0 will be rescheduled.

Organizational Details

Release Coordination

The 8.0 Release will be coordinated by Tim Donohue and the DSpace Committers.  

Updates and discussions will take place in weekly Developer Meetings.

Release Timeline

Please note that the dates below are estimates of when particular activities may occur. As there are many factors involved in a major release, these are subject to change.

Date	Milestone	What it means
Friday, January 19, 2024	Deadline for feature pull requests	If you wish to contribute features to DSpace 8.0, you must submit a pull request by this date.
Friday, February 9	Feature PR Review/Test Deadline	Initial reviews/testing of PRs should be completed by all assigned reviewers.
Friday, February 23	Feature PR Merge Deadline (Feature Freeze)	DSpace 8.0 is considered feature-complete on this date. All Feature PRs should be merged. Only bug fixes will be pulled between this date and final release.
March 3 - March 29	Major dependency updates	This is a period where the codebase will undergo major updates to support latest versions of Spring (supporting Jakarta EE) and Angular.
April 1 - April 5	Early documentation / bug fixes	Code cleanup prior to Release candidate.
By Friday, April 5	Release Candidate 1 tagged	A DSpace 8.0 Release Candidate will be available for wider testing.
April 8-19	Testathon	Intensive public testing of the 8.0 Release Candidate is invited.  The Release Team will focus on getting problems resolved.
Until May 31	Extended Bug Fixing	Testathon was very successful in finding bugs in pre-8.0.  We are currently running behind schedule as we work to ensure the major bugs have all been fixed.  The below deadlines are tentative estimates for when the release will be made available.  To see our current status, take a look at the high priority  tasks remaining on our 8.0 board.  Once high priority tasks are complete, 8.0 will be released.
Friday, June 7	Deadline for bug-fix pull requests	Bug fixes should ideally be submitted by this date.
Friday, June 20	Bug-Fix PR Merge Deadline (Code Freeze)	Ideally all bug fixes are merged by this date.  Code is "frozen", with exceptions only made if major issues are discovered.
June 17-21	Final Cleanup / Documentation	This week is set aside for any final cleanup (or very late bug fixes) that need to be applied to the code.  Also used to finalize Documentation, Release Notes, etc.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 (tentative)	DSpace 8.0 is publicly released	DSpace 8.0 is released for download and general use.

Release Process needs to proceed according to the following Maven release process: Release Procedure