Elixir runs on top of the Erlang Virtual Machine, which provides a scalable and fault-tolerant foundation. Elixir was designed to leverage this foundation without performance costs and aims to contribute to the wider ecosystem whenever possible.

Elixir v1.0 was released in September 2014 and a new minor version is released every 6 months, around May and November of every year. New releases are announced in the read-only [announcements mailing list](https://groups.google.com/group/elixir-lang-ann) with a link to the complete CHANGELOG. All security releases [will be tagged with "[security]"](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/elixir-lang-ann/%5Bsecurity%5D%7Csort:date). Security vulnerabilities should be disclosed to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). Our [compatibility and deprecation policies](https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/compatibility-and-deprecations.html#content) are also documented.

Community members are welcome to propose new features for Elixir. Before submitting a proposal, members are encouraged to gather feedback from around the community in whatever venues seem best. However, in order for a proposal to be considered for inclusion by the Elixir Core team, it must go through the Elixir mailing list. This often includes discussion and refinement of the proposal. The Elixir Core team has the final say on whether a proposal is accepted or rejected. While members are encouraged to gain support from the rest of the community, popularity does not mean that a proposal will be accepted.

Elixir also relies on a vibrant community to support its growth. The community is behind the meetups, events, learning resources, open source projects, and more. See the sidebar, the [Learning Resources](/learning.html) and [the Hex Package Manager website](https://hex.pm/) for some examples and more information.