Release Process

[Jasper Huijsmans]

On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:48:34AM +0530, Biju Chacko wrote:
> This is the kind of timeline that I feel would be ideal:
> 
> Sep 27: pre1
> Oct 11: pre2
> Oct 25: pre3
> Nov  1: 4.2
> .
> .
> .
> Dec  20: 4.4pre1
> Jan  03: 4.4pre2
> Jan  17: 4.4pre3
> Jan  31: 4.4
> 
> A new stable release every 3 months would be very difficult unless we 
> have a clear change in mindset. We need to reduce the importance of each 
> stable release. Hence there is no need to cram all the new features into 
>  the next release. Cool stuff like the compositor can be postponed 
> safely, since we *know* that it would be released in three months. 
> Feature additions could be planned to meet a specific release. If, for 
> example, Jasper wants to widget-ize the panel and he feels that it 
> cannot be managed in the 3 month gap between 4.2 and 4.4 he could carry 
> forward the previous stable version and release the widgetized version 
> in 4.6.
> 
> The exact timeline can be open to debate, but I think we need more 
> structure in our release process.
> 
> What do you think?
> 

Structure is good, three month is too short ;)

Maybe we should try to keep to 6 month. We could (should?) start doing real
alpha releases after three month. With real alpha I mean, no feature freeze,
and no API stability guarantee.

Trying to define goals is good too, but pretty hard. Especially since  none 
of us can guarantee how much time they will be able to spend on it. Well, I
can't at least ;-)

	Jasper