docs: draft of blog post for first release

www/blog/2023-12-05-first-release.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+---
+slug: first-release
+title: Version 0.5
+authors: koehlma
+tags: [rugpi,release]
+unlisted: true
+---
+
+We are excited to announce the release of Rugpi version 0.5. 🎉
+
+Version 0.5 signifies the end of Rugpi's experimental phase.
+We are confident that the foundational update mechanism is sound.
+From this point forward, we aim to **maintain backwards-compatibility for updates**.
+This means, if you deploy a system with Rugpi now, you should be able to update it remotely later.
+While the update process itself is stable, we are still iterating on the design of the image building pipeline and the CLI and APIs.
+What will change in the upcoming months is the way system images are build.
+We are planning to introduce *layers*, drawing inspiration from Docker.
+Layers will streamline the image-building process and enable fail-safe delta updates in the future.
+
+### What's new?
+
+On top of conducting further testing of the build and update process, this release also brings valuable new features over the initial prototype, which [we introduced back in July](2023-07-23-introducing-rugpi.md).
+
+Rugpi now **supports all models of Raspberry Pi** and 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS.
+We have tested the images on various models.
+A big shout out and many thanks go to [Reuben Miller](https://github.com/reubenmiller), who helped significantly with testing.
+In particular, Rugpi is known to work on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, a low-cost but still powerful variant of Raspberry Pi.
+Having extended support beyond the latest boards by integrating with [U-Boot](https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/), we are now also confident that Rugpi can be brought to other boards than Raspberry Pi.
+While building an amazing, optimized experience for Raspberry Pi clearly remains our focus, feel free to contact us in case you like Rugpi and want to use it with a different single-board computer.
+
+In addition to support for all models of Raspberry Pi, Rugpi now also supports **streaming updates directly to the underlying storage**.
+Furthermore, there is now an option to persist the writeable overlay by default making it easier to persist user-defined customizations in the field.
+
+### What's next?
+
+Having validated and expanded the foundational design, we now look ahead to the future.
+We plan to introduce a layer system to Rugpi.
+Layers will be cached and shared between different variants of a system image.
+Furthermore, they will enable a crucial feature, **fail-safe delta updates**.
+
+### Industry Adoption and Collaboration
+
+We saw great positive resonance to our initial prototype.
+With [thin-edge.io](https://thin-edge.io) we are proud to have found a partner spearheading the way to industry adoption.
+Thin-edge.io officially supports Rugpi to build and deploy images.
+To learn more, checkout the [thin-edge.io Rugpi reference repository](https://github.com/thin-edge/tedge-rugpi-image).
+
+If you're planning to adopt Rugpi or have feedback to share, we want to hear from you!
+Your contributions and insights are invaluable as we continue to shape the future of Rugpi.
+Join the community and share your experiences with Rugpi [by opening a discussion on GitHub](https://github.com/silitics/rugpi/discussions).