New Bootstrap releases are developed from the main branch, targeting the currently Active major version. When the release working group decides, a major version will be frozen and moved into Long Term Support (LTS). At that point, an LTS branch is forked from main, allowing the main branch to begin work on the next semver-major version.
During LTS, new features are generally avoided unless there's a strong justification. However, the version may still receive:
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Bug fixes
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Security patches
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Documentation updates
Eventually, after a defined period, LTS versions enter the Maintenance phase, where changes are strictly limited.
In the Maintenance phase, only the following are permitted:
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Critical bug fixes
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Critical security patches
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Important documentation updates
Maintenance updates are infrequent and typically only issued when necessary.