[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Release Manager Plans/Goals for 2.9

[Jason Stephenson]

Hi, all!

Nominated as release manager for the 2.9 release of Evergreen, I submit the
following plans and goals for your consideration and feedback before  
the vote on
Thursday, May 28.

My main interest is seeing a resolution to Evergreen's issues with negative
patron balances in bills as exemplified in Launchpad bug 1198465
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1198465).  This is our "hottest"
non-security bug, and it appears to be close to being resolved.

I also plan to push forward with three goals held over from the previous two
releases.  Some progress has lately been made on these, so I am  
optimistic that
we can get these completed for this release.  These are:

Remove circulation scripts (and Spidermonkey)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1312308

Remove leftover JSPAC code
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1312309

Remove older selfcheck interface
https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1312297

I will encourage all new code submissions to follow the QA guidelines as
proposed by Galen Charlton on the developers' mailing list on May 13:

https://www.mail-archive.com/open-ils-dev@list.georgialibraries.org/msg08152.html

This release affords us the opportunity to see if these guidelines  
will work as
requirements in the future.

It is also my intention that the 2.9 beta and final releases coincide with the
monthly maintenance releases of current Evergreen branches which are scheduled
for the third Wednesday of every month.  The alpha release will be  
delayed by a
couple of weeks in July because I will be on vacation at the time of  
the normal
monthly maintenance release.  (This time frame still gives use three weeks
between the alpha and beta releases.)  A release candidate will be issued two
weeks after the beta release if necessary.  The timeliness of the  
candidate and
final releases depends on the timelines of fixes for any issues that  
might crop
up during any of the previous phases.  Below is a summary of the major  
dates in
the 2.9 release cycle as I see them, now:

2.9 Alpha: Wednesday, July 29
2.9 Beta: Wednesday, August 19
2.9 RC1: Wednesday, August 2 (if necessary)
2.9.0: Wednesday, September 16

Respectfully submitted,
Jason Stephenson


-- 
Jason Stephenson
Assistant Director for Technology Services
Merrimack Valley Library Consortium
1600 Osgood ST, Suite 2094
North Andover, MA 01845
Phone: 978-557-5891
Email: jstephenson at mvlc.org