This is a copy of a blog post I wrote originally posted on InfluxData.com
Since 2016, the Telegraf project has released 22 minor releases, 48 release candidates, and 79 bug fix releases. Based on feedback from the community and a desire to improve the overall process, the Telegraf team will discontinue the creation of release candidates (RC) releases.
After talking to community members and observing new issue reports after minor releases, the bug reports and support conversations generated by the RC process are very low and therefore the value to us and the community is not sufficient to continue producing them.
Going forward InfluxData, wishes to produce the following artifacts:
Telegraf nightlies: Users have access to Telegraf nightlies to test new features and fixes. The nightlies include downloads for all the supported platforms and include both binaries and DEB and RPM downloads. We encourage users who have test environments or are willing to help test Telegraf to ensure these nightlies are in their environment.
Pull request artifacts: As users submit pull requests in Telegraf, artifacts are attached to a comment that users can use to download, test, and validate fixes as part of the CI process. These have been hugely helpful in getting feedback on specific proposed changes and verifying behavior. If you would like to be included in testing artifacts for specific plugins (e.g.: be tagged in GitHub on PRs for MQTT Input Plugin enhancements), please submit your information on this form.
We look forward to hearing from you about these release improvements and hope you find them useful.
Thanks!