Priorities for the next 12 months
Paul Dale
Public
Seen by 19
As part of the BAC/TAC/staff meetings later this week, there has been a request for my/our top five priorities for the next year. The ask is for a one line per item + a short "why now" elucidation.
Please let me know what you want so I can present the committers' input to those present. Even if you are unsure, say something. Any discussion or input is far better than none.
Tomas Mraz Wed 1 Oct 2025 7:47AM
@Neil Horman I mostly support your set of priorities. I have concern about 5 (zero global mutable data) though. IMO it is not achievable in time of the 4.0 release and as it will inevitably cause subtle API/ABI breakage it won't be suitable for 4.1.
Kurt Roeckx Tue 30 Sep 2025 4:10PM
If 4.0 it's going to take a year, will we have an other release in between?
Tim Hudson Tue 30 Sep 2025 4:17PM
@Kurt Roeckx 4.0 is April 2026 release - as per all releases now being on six months timelines.
Paul Dale Wed 1 Oct 2025 12:26AM
Anyone have a clue as to what happened to the text I wrote to explain this?
It has disappeared for me.
Frederik Wedel-Heinen Wed 1 Oct 2025 3:59AM
From the history it looks like you deleted it yesterday at 11:33 :)
Paul Dale Wed 1 Oct 2025 8:10AM
I edited it and it came up blank so I went back and edited again and got the text. I guess the blank must have stuck. It's not the first time I've gone to edit something here and been presented a blank comment.
Tomas Mraz Wed 1 Oct 2025 7:44AM
@Paul Dale I re-added it as I had the text in my mailbox.
Paul Dale Wed 1 Oct 2025 10:50PM
Thanks.
Frederik Wedel-Heinen Wed 1 Oct 2025 4:01AM
My priority is focused on DTLS 1.3. We need it for pqc encrypted voice and video calls and to be able to use providers.
Neil Horman · Tue 30 Sep 2025 8:56AM
My thoughts alone, targeting the 4.0 development to take place over the next 12 months:
ENGINE removal (https://github.com/openssl/project/issues/1318)
selected deprecated function removal
discontinuation of atexit() use in OpenSSL (https://github.com/openssl/project/issues/271)
sslv3 removal (https://github.com/openssl/project/issues/1319)
zero global mutable data (https://github.com/openssl/openssl/issues/23451)