Merge pull request #8501 from smlng/2018.01/release-notes

release-notes: add 2018.01

release-notes.txt

+RIOT-2018.01 - Release Notes
+============================
+RIOT is a multi-threading operating system which enables soft real-time
+capabilities and comes with support for a range of devices that are typically
+found in the Internet of Things: 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers as well as
+light-weight 32-bit processors.
+
+RIOT is based on the following design principles: energy-efficiency, soft
+real-time capabilities, small memory footprint, modularity, and uniform API
+access, independent of the underlying hardware (with partial POSIX compliance).
+
+RIOT is developed by an international open-source community which is
+independent of specific vendors (e.g. similarly to the Linux community) and is
+licensed with a non-viral copyleft license (LGPLv2.1), which allows indirect
+business models around the free open-source software platform provided by RIOT.
+
+
+About this release:
+===================
+The 2018.01 release includes major progress in RIOTs network communication
+capabilities, i.e., rewrite of GNRC's neighbour discovery, confirmable messages
+in (g)CoAP, LoRa, and GoMacH as well as updates on CCN-lite and LWIP.
+Furthermore, RIOT contributes to _IKEA-Hacking_ by bringing support for
+the smart home lighting system TRADFRI (note: this will void the warranty).
+Needless to say that this release also adds and updates support for several
+platforms, drivers, and of course lots of enhancements to the documentation
+as well as numerous bug fixes. Last but not least, RIOT now has an official
+code of conduct (https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)
+
+More than 442 pull requests with about 865 commits have been merged since the
+last release and about 96 issues have been solved. 54 people contributed with code
+in 96 days. Approximately 2370 files have been touched with 223970 insertions
+and 181409 deletions.
+
+
+Notations used below:
+=====================
+    + means new feature/item
+    * means modified feature/item
+    - means removed feature/item
+
+
+New features and changes
+========================
+System libraries
+----------------
+    + event: event queue framework like libevent
+
+Networking
+----------
+    + gcoap: confirmable messages
+    + nanocoap: no external package anymore
+    * GNRC: major rewrite of neighbour discovery
+    * GNRC: new API for network interface handling
+
+Packages
+--------
+    + gecko_sdk: library for EFM/EFR/EZR32 MCUs
+    * libcoap: git patching fixed
+    + littlefs: filesystem for constraint devices
+    - nanocoap: now part of RIOT
+    * openthread: updated
+    + semtech-loramac: LoRa MAC
+    + umorse: morse encoder
+
+Boards
+------
+    + acd52832
+    * common: restructured shared code for boards
+    + b-l475e-iot01a
+    + bluepill
+    + ikea-tradfri
+    - pca10000
+    - pca10005
+    - qemu-i386
+    + ruuvitag
+    + sltb001a
+    + teensy31
+    + thingy52
+    - x86
+
+CPU
+---
+    + efm32
+    * kinetis: unified all MCU variants
+    - x86
+
+Device Drivers
+--------------
+    + socket_zep: emulated IEEE 802.15.4 device over a UDP for native
+    + hts221
+    + lc709203f
+    + lis2dh12
+    + rn2xx3
+    + soft_spi
+    + tja1042
+
+Build System / Tooling
+----------------------
+    + flake8: python code checker
+    * make: set `-Wall -Wextra` as default for all compilers and platforms
+    - sniffer: moved to applications repository
+    + tests: add automated test scripts for many apps
+
+
+Fixed Issues from the last release (2017.10)
+============================================
+#2143: unittests: tests-core doesn't compile for all platforms
+#4499: handle of l2src_len in gnrc_ndp_rtr_sol_handle
+#4822: kw2xrf: packet loss when packets get fragmented
+#5005: ndp: router advertisement sent with global address
+#5122: NDP: global unicast address on non-6LBR nodes disappears after a while
+#5656: Possible Weakness with locking in the GNRC network stack
+#5790: ND: Lost of Global IPV6 on node after sending lot of UDP frame from BR
+#5944: msp430: ipv6_hdr unittests fail
+#6451: Wrong value in SRF08 driver
+#6502: cpu/stm32l1: RTC broken
+
+
+Known Issues
+============
+Networking related issues
+-------------------------
+#5230: gnrc ipv6: multicast packets are not dispatched to the upper layers
+#5858: gnrc: 6lo: potential problem with reassembly of fragments: If one frame
+       gets lost the reassembly state machine might get out of sync
+#7035: lwIP: hangs due to sema change after a while
+
+Timer related issues
+--------------------
+#5103: xtimer: weird behavior of tests/xtimer_drift: xtimer_drift randomly
+       jumps a few seconds on nrf52
+#5338: xtimer: xtimer_now() not ISR safe for non-32-bit platforms.
+#6052: tests: xtimer_drift gets stuck: application freezes after ~30-200 seconds
+#7114: xtimer: add's items to the wrong list if the timer overflows between
+       _xtimer_now() and irq_disable()
+
+native related issues
+---------------------
+#495:  native not float safe: When FPU is used and an asynchronous context
+       switch occurs, either the stack gets corrupted or a floating point
+       exception occurs.
+#6442: cpu/native: timer interrupt does not yield thread
+
+other platform related issues
+-----------------------------
+#1891: newlib-nano: Printf formatting does not work properly for some numeric
+       types: PRI[uxdi]64, PRI[uxdi]8 and float are not parsed in newlib-nano
+#4866: not all GPIO driver implementations are thread safe: Due to non-atomic
+       operations in the drivers some pin configurations might get lost.
+#5848: Arduino: Race condition in sys/arduino/Makefile.include
+#6018: nRF52 gnrc 6lowpan ble memory leak
+#6261: SAMD21: TC3 & TC4 issue when using TCC2
+#6379: nrf52dk/nordic_soft_device: not working anymore
+#6437: periph/spi: Leftovers from SPI rework
+#6526: atmega based boards freeze when main thread is over
+#6836: Issuing a reboot on ATmega328p makes the board loop-reboot
+#7753: pic32-wifire: race-condition when linking in concurrent build
+
+other issues
+------------
+#1263: TLSF implementation contains (a) read-before-write error(s).
+#3366: periph/i2c: handle NACK
+#4488: Making the newlib thread-safe: When calling puts/printf after
+       thread_create(), the CPU hangs for DMA enabled UART drivers.
+#5776: make: Predefining CFLAGS are parsed weirdly
+#5863: OSX + SAMR21-xpro: shell cannot handle inputs of length >64 chars
+#5962: Makefile: UNDEF variable is not working as documented
+
+
+Acknowledgements
+================
+We would like to thank all companies (vendors) that provided us with (their)
+hardware for porting and testing RIOT-OS. Further thanks go to companies and
+institutions that directly sponsored development time. And finally, big thanks
+to all of you contributing in so many different ways to make RIOT worthwhile!
+
+More information
+================
+http://www.riot-os.org
+
+Mailing lists
+-------------
+* RIOT OS kernel developers list
+  devel@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/devel)
+* RIOT OS users list
+  users@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/users)
+* RIOT commits
+  commits@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/commits)
+* Github notifications
+  notifications@riot-os.org (http://lists.riot-os.org/mailman/listinfo/notifications)
+
+IRC
+---
+* Join the RIOT IRC channel at: irc.freenode.net, #riot-os
+
+License
+=======
+* The code developed by the RIOT community is licensed under the GNU Lesser
+  General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 as published by the Free Software
+  Foundation.
+* Some external sources and packages are published under a separate license.
+
+All code files contain licensing information.
+
+
+
 RIOT-2017.10 - Release Notes
 ============================
 RIOT is a multi-threading operating system which enables soft real-time