Merge pull request #7032 from kaspar030/add_2017.04_release_notes

RELEASE 2017.04

release-notes.txt

@@ -1,3 +1,122 @@
+RIOT-2017.04 - Release Notes
+============================
+RIOT is a multi-threading operating system which enables soft real-time
+capabilities and comes with support for a range of devices that are typically
+found in the Internet of Things: 8-bit microcontrollers, 16-bit
+microcontrollers and light-weight 32-bit processors.
+
+RIOT is based on the following design principles: energy-efficiency, soft
+real-time capabilities, small memory footprint, modularity, and uniform API
+access, independent of the underlying hardware (with partial POSIX compliance).
+
+RIOT is developed by an international open-source community which is
+independent of specific vendors (e.g. similarly to the Linux community) and is
+licensed with a non-viral copyleft license (LGPLv2.1), which allows indirect
+business models around the free open-source software platform provided by RIOT.
+
+About this release:
+===================
+This release provides a lot of new features, fixes and enhancements. Among
+these has been a huge cleanup regarding cppcheck and documentation, and we're
+pleased to announce that all remaining doxygen and cppcheck warnings have been
+fixed.  We're also proud to present a Virtual File System layer and integration
+of the SPIFFS file system.  A lot of work has gone into support for
+STMicroelectronics's Nucleo family, with RIOT now supporting 28 (up from 13)
+Nucleo boards.  And as always, there was a lot of under-the-hood cleanup, bug
+fixing and documentation work.
+
+About 200 pull requests with about 562 commits have been merged since the last release and about 23
+issues have been solved. 32 people contributed with code in 91 days. 2697 files have been touched with
+716950 insertions and 492623 deletions.
+
+Notations used below:
+=====================
++ means new feature/item
+* means modified feature/item
+- means removed feature/item
+
+New features and changes
+========================
+
+Core
+----
++ full C11 atomics support
++ rmutex, a recursive mutex implementation
+
+API changes
+-----------
+* renamed NTOH*() -> ntoh*(), HTON*() -> hton*()
+- removed gpioint API, which was unnused and obsoleted by periph/gpio
+* renamed uuid module to luid
+
+System libraries
+----------------
++ VFS: virtual file system layer
++ fmt: add print_byte_hex(), fmt_lpad()
+- 3DES: removed support as 3DES is considered legacy crypto
+
+Networking
+----------
++ emCute - a small MQTT-SN implementation
++ sock_dns: a simple DNS resolver
+
+Packages
+--------
++ SPIFFS, the first file system supported by RIOT's VFS layer
++ jerryscript, a Javascript interpreter
+
+Drivers
+-------
+- added dynamixel server motor driver
+- removed ltc4150 driver
+- removed smb380 driver
+
+Build System
+------------
++ Experimental distributed building using Murdock
++ most makfiles moved from root into makefiles/
++ added submodule support
+
+Special Thanks
+==============
+We like to give our special thanks to all the companies that provided us with their hardware for
+porting and testing, namely the people from (in alphabeticalorder): Atmel, Freescale, Imagination
+Technologies, Nordic, OpenMote, Phytec, SiLabs, UDOO, and Zolertia; and also companies that directly
+sponsored development time: Cisco Systems, Eistec, Ell-i, Enigeering Spirit, Nordic, OTAkeys and Phytec.
+
+More information
+================
+http://www.riot-os.org
+
+Mailing lists
+-------------
+* RIOT OS kernel developers list
+  devel@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/devel)
+* RIOT OS users list
+  users@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/users)
+* RIOT commits
+  commits@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/commits)
+* Github notifications
+  notifications@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/notifications)
+
+IRC
+---
+* Join the RIOT IRC channel at: irc.freenode.net, #riot-os
+
+License
+=======
+* Most of the code developed by the RIOT community is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public
+  License (LGPL) version 2.1 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
+* Some external sources are published under a separate, LGPL compatible license
+  (e.g. some files developedby SICS).
+
+All code files contain licensing information.
+
+
+
+
+
+
 RIOT-2017.01 - Release Notes
 ============================
 RIOT is a multi-threading operating system which enables soft real-time capabilities and comes with