Xen release cycle revisited

[Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>]

Hi all,

with 4.10 more or less finished it is time to plan for the next release
4.11. Since 4.7 we are using a 6 month release cycle [1] targeting to
release in June and December.

While this worked reasonably well for 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 we had some
difficulties with 4.10: bad luck with security patch timing shifted the
4.10 release more towards mid of December. Doing thorough testing of the
latest security patches and trying to release at least 10 days before
Christmas seemed to be almost mutually exclusive goals.

So what do we learn from this experience?

1. Should we think about other planned release dates (e.g. May and
   November - would that collide with any holiday season)?

2. Shouldn't we have tried to include the latest security patches in
   4.10, resulting in the need for 4.10.1 at once?

3. Should we let the release slip for almost a month in such a case?

4. Should we try harder to negotiate embargo dates of security issues to
   match the (targeted) release dates?

5. Should we modify the development/hardening periods?

For 4.11 we shouldn't have this problem: while targeted for releasing in
early June it wouldn't be a nightmare to let it slip into July. 4.12
however will probably face the same problem again and we should prepare
for that possibility.


Juergen

[1]: https://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2015-10/msg00263.html

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