[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] 2.8 release scheduling

[Mike Rylander]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 12:11 PM, Bill Erickson <berickxx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 8:29 AM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Bill,
>>
>> First, thanks for putting out a timeline.
>>
>> I am a little concerned about the pre-beta feature freeze.  In the past,
>> the merge deadline for features has always been "whatever makes it into the
>> beta release", and I don't see cutting that back by a week helping things
>> to get done faster -- we just end up with a week less features in 2.8, and
>> that last week is often (us being humans, and whatnot) the critical push
>> time for things that are almost there.  Do you have something in mind that
>> I'm not seeing for the change there?
>>
>
> The feature freeze basically is the beta.  (I recall now this was called
> the "beta cut-off" during the 2.6 cycle.  I'll use this terminology going
> forward).  The interval between the cut-off and beta release cutting is our
> chance to let the dust settle after the merge rush so we're not cutting a
> buggy beta.  If Feb 18th is too soon, we can certainly push the beta back.
>
>
I won't fight you hard on the week between cut-off and beta wrapping, but
IMO it doesn't serve much purpose. Believe me, I know better than most that
betas often don't get the attention they deserve, and because of that it
feels (again, to me and maybe not to anyone else) like a week of doldrums.
But if you feel that week will help you shake things out as RM, I'll
mentally s/25/18/ the beta date


> With my proposed schedule, the post-freeze period for 2.8 is already 2
> weeks shorter than it was for 2.7.  So, if we push the beta back, we should
> push back the mid-march release date as well.
>

Point taken.  I'll consent that the winter time loss (vacations and such)
is surely causing more time crunch than that week.


>
>
>>
>> I did note that the feature target deadline is not a hard deadline, but
>> for my part I can say that with the schedule only being clarified over what
>> amounts to 3 months (the remainder of December through release in
>> mid-March), the middle of January will be a tight squeeze to target things
>> by then.  Being one that does a good bit of feature development, I expect
>> to be begging leave to target features after the scheduled date on several
>> smaller features, as dev time permits in January and February.  I just want
>> to set that expectation now, so it's not a surprise if it ends up
>> happening...
>>
>
> I am definitely expecting new features to emerge after the LP target
> deadline.  This deadline serves two purposes in my mind.  1. If you know
> about it, document it, so others will know about it.  2. If you want to
> introduce large architectural changes after this date, be prepared for
> additional community scrutiny.
>
>
Understood, and that makes sense, thanks.  I was thinking of small things,
not big architectural stuff, with my "head's up".


> I was in no particular rush to publish the schedule with the assumption
> that release schedules are highly predictable.  Release mid-March/October,
> beta cut-off a month before that, and everything else is gravy.  For my own
> sake and that of future RM's, is that not a reasonable assumption?
>
>
I agree that should be a reasonable assumption.  While it may just be a
matter of terminology and taste, it seemed like there were some departures
from the past (feature cutoff and beta wrapping offset, no alpha (which I
agree with you on, fwiw)), so it felt less predictable (predicted?) to me.

Thanks!

--miker

Thanks,
>
> -b
>
>
>
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>> --
>> Mike Rylander
>>  | President
>>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
>>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>>  | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
>>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 4:07 PM, Bill Erickson <berickxx at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I'm attempting to sketch out the release schedule for Evergreen 2.8, so
>>> I'd like to run some dates/thoughts by everyone.
>>>
>>> For starters, unless someone requests it, I'm not planning to cut an
>>> Alpha release.  I've never seen anyone install one :).  I'm happy to cut
>>> one if desired, though.
>>>
>>> Proposed schedule:
>>>
>>> * Jan 14 2015: Feature Target Deadline
>>>
>>> This is the date where all features we expect to get into 2.8 are
>>> documented in LP and targeted to 2.8.  They do not have to be coded or
>>> tagged as pull requests by this date.  They just need to be documented.  As
>>> before, this is a strong recommendation, but not a hard deadline.
>>>
>>> Feb 18 2015: Feature Freeze
>>>
>>> From this date forward, only bug fixes may be committed to master.  Any
>>> un-merged features will be booted to 2.9.
>>>
>>> Feb 25 2015: 2.8.beta1 Release
>>>
>>> March 9 2015: 2.8.rc1 Release
>>>
>>> March 18 2015: 2.8.0 Release
>>>
>>> Comments/suggestions welcome.
>>>
>>> Note that in the future I'll avoid cross-posting to both -general and
>>> -dev lists and just send 2.8 updates to -general to cut down on noise.
>>>
>>> Thanks, everyone.
>>>
>>> -b
>>>
>>
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