[1.5.X] Fixed #19180 - Clarified policy regarding older versions of the docs.

Django from the source code repository

(see :ref:`installing-development-version`). The development version has the

latest-and-greatest documentation, just as it has latest-and-greatest code.

Generally, we only revise documentation in the development version, as our

policy is to freeze documentation for existing releases (see

We also backport documentation fixes and improvements, at the discretion of the

committer, to the last release branch. That's because it's highly advantageous

to have the docs for the last release be up-to-date and correct (see

:ref:`differences-between-doc-versions`).

Getting started with Sphinx

  "New in version X.Y", being X.Y the next release version (hence, the one

  being developed).

* Documentation for a particular Django release is frozen once the version

  has been released officially. It remains a snapshot of the docs as of the

  moment of the release. We will make exceptions to this rule in

  the case of retroactive security updates or other such retroactive

  changes. Once documentation is frozen, we add a note to the top of each

  frozen document that says "These docs are frozen for Django version XXX"

  and links to the current version of that document.

* Documentation fixes and improvements may be backported to the last release

  branch, at the discretion of the committer, however, once a version of

  Django is :ref:`no longer supported<backwards-compatibility-policy>`, that

  version of the docs won't get any further updates.

* The `main documentation Web page`_ includes links to documentation for

  all previous versions.

  all previous versions. Be sure you are using the version of the docs

  corresponding to the version of Django you are using!

.. _main documentation Web page: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/