[arch-releng] Dep cycles in core and 2009.01

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:19:26 +0100
Gerhard Brauer <gerbra at archlinux.de> wrote:

> Am Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:05:55 +0100
> schrieb Pierre Schmitz <pierre at archlinux.de>:
> 
> > Am Donnerstag 29 Januar 2009 20:24:28 schrieb Aaron Griffin:
> > > If all goes as planned, the
> > > same beta3 images will be used for release.
> > 
> > So, its more an RC then. :-) Maybe you could even move it straigt to
> > the ftp dir with its final name and if nothing goes wrong we can
> > just announce it on Monday. This way it will be already synced by
> > the mirrors.
> 
> Sorry, I'm meanwhile totally against such "Counter strike" actions!
> 
> A few background infos:
> First "release" should be on 24.12.2008, Aaron and myself thought:
> Hey, let's modify the installer to support ext4, bring grub to work
> with ext4 and build a ISO with 2.6.28. This looks first good, but
> than we run in time- and communications problems during different
> timezones, christmas/family, etc.
> 
> Next "release" was close for 31.12.2008, we have done a few bugfixes
> we found, but the time plan was not possible cause not all needed
> packages went to core (Looking from current to this past it was good
> that these "time plans" could not be solved)
> 
> Then comes the showstopper with USB keyboard in initrd and the
> problems with the USB images. Meanwhile all needed packages are in
> core, but these problems costs us time (and lead to the
> private/alpha/beta ISOs). But a "release" was very close on the first
> January's days, so we anounce the "Release group", establish this ML
> and the bugtracker. This step was totally OK, but we were confronted
> with a lot of major/minor problems and features. This "strike" us in
> a situation where the releng group was not really in the state of a
> working group to handle these things in a good way.
> 
> So my opinion is:
> We should stop this chaos to try releasing "tomorrow" again and again!
> 
> My plan is:
> Week 6: build and test the RCs (what Aaron named beta3). Duration of
> RC testing could be increased to week 7 if needed.
> Definitively release date is: week 7 (or latest week 8 when we must
> increase RC testing phase).
> 
> IMHO this is more realistic than our other "plans".
> 
> Gerhard
> 

Actually there were already a few iterations before that. we first
wanted to do a 2.6.27 release (which also was delayed already for a few
months. but then was also the archiso scripts rewrite).

The 2.6.28 release has been postphoned a lot because of little issues
popping up needing to be adressed. I think what we have decided now
(build "final" iso's, ask for signoffs, and if enough: release) is good.
The plan is afaik to release if the iso's seem *good enough for most
users*, if there are still small problems with these beta3's (and hence
the final release) we can still (try to) fix them for the next
release.  This idea breaks with the "try to make it absolutely perfect"
idea which keeps on delaying the release.  I like this.  As long as
there are no big showstoppers we should be able to release.  After all,
we plan to release every 3 months. non-showstoppers can move to the
next cycle if we couldn't address them in time.


PS: the beta3 iso's seem to be arriving
@ http://dev.archlinux.org/~aaron/archiso/ now. Start your engines!

Dieter