Has development stopped on Scribus?

[Fran_iii]

Just wondering if development has stopped on Scribus.
It's been 4 years since the last release.

And, activity on the forum seems to be somewhat light,
which is sometimes an indicator of a small or shrinking user base.

Asking as I have now spent a couple of days with the program but now wondering if I am investing time in a program that is near end of life.

I like the program but just to want to find out the current and future status.

Thanks for any help.

[MrB]

The last release was 1.5.8 in January 2022. We're going to release 1.6.0 soon, the next officially stable version. We're working on 1.7.0 development version too.

[Fran_iii]

Great news but I just downloaded and installed Scribus for Win-10 64-bit and...
it tells me in "About" that it is...
version 1.4.8 released March 3, 2019.

I then clicked About > Updates
and it says the later versions "This list may contain development/unstable versions."

Is there a stable version for Win-10 64-bit PC's
and if so where can I safely download it.

Thanks so much for the help.

[Nermander]

As for many open source softwares the development of Scribus goes in a slow pace. If I am not wrong, currently there are only two developers working om Scribus. They do it in their own spare time, they are not getting paid for the work.

Scribus version 1.4.8 is indeed the latest "stable" version, but the "development" version 1.5.8 (that will soon become 1.6.0) is stable enough for most users. I doubt anyone using Scribus on a regular basis is using anything else than 1.5.8.

[Fran_iii]

Thanks for the info, and thanks to the developers.
I wonder what it takes to change "the development" version to become"stable"?

[Nermander]

There is usually a roadmap for what features are going to be implemented, and once those are stable enough a new stable version is released.

The reason that these features are not backported to the stable tree is usually that they depend on a new version of a framework that is implemented in the development version.

[MrB]

Thanks for the info, and thanks to the developers.
I wonder what it takes to change "the development" version to become"stable"?

If the reported bug volume drops or seriousness of issues drops, preferably to zero, or features being worked on are completed, then that's a good indication to us. We've worked on 1.5.x for years and always tried to maintain a lot of stability vs major breakage. Its ready to replace 1.4.8, just a few more things to go in to fix some outstanding issues and we're done.