Change list from 6.8 to HEAD, and 7.0 plans

[Adam Jackson]

On Monday 04 April 2005 18:58, Daniel Stone wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 06:28:06PM -0400, Adam Jackson wrote:
> > This brings up the question of release date.  Anyone have strong feelings
> > about this?  We've already missed the six month mark from 6.8.0 given the
> > massive 6.8.2 effort.  I would suggest August at the latest, and
> > preferably July.
>
> I don't think July is realistic, given it's now April and we're still
> sitting here, with a whole bunch of work to do, talking about when to
> try to release.

Fair enough.  Here's a strawman, targetted at August 19, which is just over 19 
weeks out:

June 10:   Code slush.  Any big changes should start stabilizing.
June 24:   Feature freeze.  Patches should be bugfix only and preferably
           through subsystem maintainers where they exist.  Begin writing
           release notes and doc updates.
July 8:    RC1.  Code freeze for all but approved patches, fairly open
           approval stance.
July 22:   RC2.  Patch approval for crashes, correctness, regressions, build
           fixes only.  Docs should be basically done.
August 5:  RC3.  Approval for showstoppers only.
August 19: 6.9 / 7.0.  6.9 enters immediate maintenance mode, HEAD in xc/ is
           for 6.9.x releases only.  7.0 modules open for new development.

That's two weeks for each cycle, which I think is reasonable.  It also allows 
about two weeks of slip before we hit September, and 10-12 weeks of open 
commits before we start serious release mode.

The modular tree's time frame is somewhat dependent on the exact schedule we 
aim for, but I would like to see it at about 90% completion by the code slush 
point for all the major platforms, where "major" is: Linux, Solaris, at least 
one BSD, OSX, and Win32.  (Other platforms are welcome and encouraged to 
shoot for completion by that date too, of course.)

The development plan for modular is basically the bootstrap order: protocol 
headers, libs, server, apps.  I would expect these to proceed in rough order 
for each platform, but that different platforms could be at different stages 
in the process.  Given that, and the above timeline, I would say the 
following would be worst-case dates for finishing each step:  (note that 
platform-specific fixes can go in during the release cycle)

May 13:  headers
May 27:  libs
June 10: server
June 24: apps

That's just over five weeks to have all the headers filled in, which sounds 
quick.  Balancing this is that it's a fairly mechanical process, we have 
quite a few hands to do it, and that we have a lot of this already done in 
the existing proof-of-concept.  I'm up for the challenge, I'm just waiting 
for the arch group to give me the green light ;).

Unfortunately since the modular trees will host new development going forward, 
there's really no way to make a development branch early, where I'd like to 
do it at about the RC1 mark.  I'm willing to pay that price for what it buys 
us.

It sounds rapid, but it's also almost five months.  If we can't go from open 
tree to released in five months we're doing something wrong.

- ajax
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg/attachments/20050404/114b6fa8/attachment.pgp>