As of early 2012, the SAGA-C++ implementation is considered feature
complete and stable, and has entered maintenance mode: no new features
are implemented; tickets are acted upon (as long as they don't ask for
major features); deployment support is ongoing.

At the same time, we increased the focus on the Python implementation.
The first release saw the light of day in September 2012.  The code
base is changing heavily, but is expected to stabilize around Q1/2013
('Tier-1') -- at this point, we will begin to provide packaged
versions to UMD, replacing the current Python wrapper around SAGA-C++.

Tier-1 of SAGA-Python will include the following packages:

  - jobs
  - filesystem
  - resources
  - service discover
  - information service navigation

over the following set of backends:

  - local         (job, resources, files)
  - ssh           (job, resources, files)
  - ssh+pbs       (job, resources)
  - ssh+torque    (job, resources)
  - gsissh        (job, resources)
  - condor        (job, resources)
  - bdii          (sd, isn)


Tier-2 is planned to add the following backends (packages):

  - OCCI          (resources)
  - Globus        (resources, jobs)
  - Redis         (advert)
  - Monitoring    (all job packages)


Tier-3 is planned to add the following backends (packages):

  - ZQM           (messages)
  - Async Ops     (all packages)
  - Monitoring    (all packages)
  - Notifications (all packages)


No exact timelines exist for Tier-2 and Tier-3, but we estimate
Q3/2013 and Q1/2014, respectively.


In a related, but parallel effort, work is ongoing to re-unify the
different existing SAGA Python implementations and language wrappers
-- that effort is expected to be completed in Q1/2013.