Re: Xen release cycle revisited

From: Steven Haigh <netwiz@crc.id.au>
To: Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@citrix.com>
Cc: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>,
	George Dunlap <dunlapg@umich.edu>,
	Julien Grall <julien.grall@linaro.org>,
	"committers@xenproject.org" <committers@xenproject.org>,
	Jan Beulich <JBeulich@suse.com>,
	xen-devel <xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org>
Subject: Re: Xen release cycle revisited
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2018 02:07:48 +1100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1722077.KMArrVY7cK@wopr.lan.crc.id.au> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <371025E8-3FE9-47A5-A317-2C5088667A8B@citrix.com>

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On Tuesday, 2 January 2018 11:54:43 PM AEDT Lars Kurth wrote:
> Hi Juergen:
> 
> thank you for raising this. As far as I can tell, the switch to the
> 6-monthly release model has had some consequences, some of which were
> predicted, others were not. So, I think we should probably review the
> decision. 

> Key concerns raised:
> • Too much work in actively maintaining 4 branches (6 security branches)
> • Impact on users (too many releases)
> • I think we are definitely incurring higher overheads than with longer
> cycles
 • It is not clear to me whether one of the key benefits – aka
> vendors getting patches into tree more easily – has in fact materialized •
> Better release predictability has materialized
> 
> Maybe the right approach would be to kick off some kind of survey to gather
> input from different stake-holders and maybe plan 4.11 for June. If there
> is a consensus for a change to say a year cadence, we probably wouldn’t
> execute this until 4.12 anyway. 

I would like to propose for consideration:

* 12 months between major releases (x.y)
* 3 or 4 months between point releases (x.y.z)

This way, we roll up all XSAs etc into a x.y.z release on a regular basis - 
which I believe would make the security teams job easier (let me know if I'm 
wrong with this?).

Then aim to release x.y+1 (or maybe x+1?) in, say, June each year.

I'm not sure if there has been a set time frame as a goal for x.y.z releases - 
from my not so close observations, they seem to be somewhat adhoc.

As always though - more than happy to get feedback / comments on the above.

-- 
Steven Haigh

📧 netwiz@crc.id.au       💻 http://www.crc.id.au
📞 +61 (3) 9001 6090    📱 0412 935 897

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