KoP release explanation and bad releases update

[BewareMyPower]

This issue focus more on KoP's release. It's not a part of KoP itself, so I chose to open an issue instead of updating the document.

First, see the release page (the screenshot was taken in 2022-02-17):

At this moment, the latest release version is 2.9.2.4. You can download NAR file and the source code from the release page. You can also check the source code from the related branch-2.9.2.4.

There is an extra version number than Pulsar. Because KoP is released every week on general. Sometimes there will be some urgent releases. The release process is controlled by StreamNative.

Generally, KoP x.y.z.m is guaranteed to be compatible with Pulsar x.y.z.

But there are some exceptional cases caused by incorrect CI. For example, at the time when KoP 2.9.2.4 is released, the stable version of Pulsar 2.9.2 is not released. So KoP 2.9.2.4 is compatible with Pulsar 2.9.1. In addition, some releases have critical bugs like 2.9.2.2. So this issue will track these wrong releases.

Generally it's recommended to use the latest release. For example, at this moment (2022-02-17),

• if you're using Pulsar 2.9.1, it's better to use KoP 2.9.2.4 (it should be 2.9.1.9 if the release CI is correct).
• If you're using Pulsar 2.8.2, it's better to use KoP 2.8.2.9.
• Since Pulsar 2.8.2 is a patch version of 2.8, KoP 2.8.1.x is not maintained. If you're using Pulsar 2.8.1 or 2.8.0 currently, please upgrade Pulsar to 2.8.2 first.

[BewareMyPower]

Bad version number:

• 2.9.2.1 to 2.9.2.4 (to be updated...): they are actually guaranteed to be compatible with Pulsar 2.9.1
• 2.9.2.1: It's actually the same with 2.9.1.1

Releases that have critical bugs:

• Serious direct memory leak (fixed by #1069)
  • 2.9.2.2
  • 2.8.2.6
• NPE when fetching messages for multiple partitions (issue: #1032, fixed by #1034)
  • 2.9.2.1
  • 2.9.1.2 to 2.9.1.5
  • 2.8.2.2 to 2.8.2.4