Mesa 21.1 Will Aim To Be Out By Mid-May

With Mesa 21.0 released earlier this month following a one month delay, the Mesa 21.1 release calendar has now been published for that next quarterly feature release.

Mesa 21.1 has been under development since 21.0 was branched off in January and as such a lot of work has already accumulated while there still are a few weeks to build up more feature code. Mesa 21.1 is planned for branching and the first release candidate around 14 April. Following that mid-April branching, weekly release candidates will continue until the official release is ready.

Mesa 21.1 under this proposal could then arrive on 5 May or potentially pulled back to the next week or later if additional release candidates are needed.

So while Mesa release delays are all too common due to blocker bugs and other release management challenges, the hope is Mesa 21.1.0 will be ready to ship by early to mid May per the release calendar.

Stepping up to serve as the Mesa 21.1 release manager is Eric Engeström.

Mesa 21.1 has many Vulkan driver optimizations, Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan continuing to get into great shape, Radeon Aldebaran support, a variety of performance optimizations, and more on deck that will likely land in the next few weeks. From Mesa 21.1 it might also be the last major release supporting the Mesa classic drivers.