xgboost 1.6.1

1.6.1 Patch Release

on Python PyPI

This is a patch release for bug fixes and Spark barrier mode support. The R package is unchanged.

Experimental support for categorical data

• Fix segfault when the number of samples is smaller than the number of categories. (#7853)
• Enable partition-based split for all model types. (#7857)

JVM packages

We replaced the old parallelism tracker with spark barrier mode to improve the robustness of the JVM package and fix the GPU training pipeline.

• Fix GPU training pipeline quantile synchronization. (#7823, #7834)
• Use barrier model in spark package. (#7836, #7840, #7845, #7846)
• Fix shared object loading on some platforms. (#7844)