Delay in Upgrades to 2.20.x

Usually when a new minor release for GitHub arrives, we wait out the initial “dot zero” (2.x.0) release to give some time to work out any of the initial bugs with the new features, and then when the “dot one” (2.x.1) release arrives, we upgrade to that. This lets us bypass some of the more painful breakages involved when there are new features added to the system.

For the 2.20.x release, GitHub is changing how it classifies repositories in Enterprise Server deployments to closer match how repositories are treated on github.com and the Enterprise Cloud deployments. Previously there were two types of repository: public and private. The Enterprise Cloud deployment introduced a new classification called “internal”, which are public to members of the parent organization, but not to the world. As of the 2.20.x release of Enterprise Server, all repositories will match this new model with the inclusion of “internal” repositories.

As a part of the 2.20.0 upgrade, there is an optional (for now) migration script that will modify the classification of existing repositories in the instance. At some point in the future, this migration will become mandatory. We’d like to invoke this migration now, but we are unsure what the exact impact to the existing repositories will be. As such, we will be delaying the 2.20.x upgrade until such time as we are able to test the migration script on a development instance of Enterprise Server, and document exactly what the impact will be.

Therefore, until we test out the migration script on a 2.20.x instance of Enterprise Server, we will be keeping the github.ncsu.edu deployment on the 2.19.x release branch. This will apply security patches and fix critical bugs, but will not introduce any new features or improvements. We’re excited to take advantage of some of the new toys coming in 2.20.x, but we want to make absolutely sure we know what the repository migration impact will be before we roll it out.

Read the official GitHub announcement of the change here: https://github.blog/2020-02-11-github-enterprise-server-2-20-is-here/#internal-visibility-in-github-enterprise-server