<sect1 id="string-freezes">
<title>
String freezes and the &d-i; release process
</title>

<para>
&d-i; is managed by a team of developers. The release
of the installer involves the releases of all packages which are part
of it.
</para>

<para>&d-i; releases are managed by the &d-i; release
manager. Periodically, a <emphasis>release plan</emphasis> is built in order to publish a
stable release of the installer from the source of packages which are
in the archive.
</para>

<para>
Outside release processes, the &d-i; packages are work in progress which
means that the strings they contain are likely to change.
</para>

<para>
As a consequence, translators may choose to halt their work during
high development activity periods, and thus get their translation
statistics (see <xref linkend="status-pages"/>) slowly
decreasing as long as packages are changed. Another work method
uses a regular survey of translation statistics pages with immediate updates
when the material gets outdated.
</para>

<para>
Both methods are accepted by the &d-i; development team as long as
languages reach back 100% translation for releases. &i18n-coords; tend
to favor the constant update method because the massive update method
never guarantees that translators for a given language are still
active.
</para>

<para>
The constant update method is also the only one that give enough time
to translation teams for doing peer review of their translation work.
</para>

<para>
All releases plans include a <emphasis>string freeze</emphasis>
period. This time period is quite short and usually lasts a few days
(4-6) possibly including a week-end. A string freeze means that &d-i;
package maintainers must not change the strings in packages maintained
by the &d-i; team. As such, a string freeze guarantees translators that
they can work safely without fearing to see their work dropped away
because of a last minute change.
</para>

<para>
Translators should be aware that string freezes always have
exceptions. In rare occasions, when important bugs are discovered
which require updates to English strings, they are changed even during
the string freeze. However, such changes are always made with the
agreement of the release manager and the &i18n-coords;. In such case,
translators are warned in the &email-debian-i18n-list; mailing list about
the change. So, during string freezes, translators should carefully
check their mailboxes, or watch the status pages regularly.
</para>

<para>
String freezes are only relevant for level 1 translations,
&base-config; and &tasksel;. Other level 2 and all other levels
packages above packages may get updates while &d-i; packages are
frozen. In most cases, however, their maintainers are aware of the
&d-i; release process and try to avoid last minute changes.
</para>

</sect1>

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