Re: Xen release cycle revisited

[Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>]

On 14/12/17 14:13, Juergen Gross wrote:
> On 14/12/17 13:43, Julien Grall wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 14/12/17 11:38, Juergen Gross wrote:
>>> On 14/12/17 12:28, Julien Grall wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 14/12/17 07:56, Juergen Gross wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Hi Juergen,
>>>>
>>>> I would recommend to CC committers on that thread, so your thread don't
>>>> get lost in the xen-devel meanders :).
>>>>
>>>>> 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?
>>>>
>>>> I am not sure to understand this questions here.
>>>
>>> Hmm, yes, this is somehow garbled.
>>>
>>> Next try:
>>>
>>> 2. Should we have released 4.10 without those late security patches,
>>>     resulting in the need for 4.10.1 at once?
>>
>> We were not ready to release on the 2nd December. This would have put
>> the release date too close to XSAs published date. The risk was that the
>> security issues announcement would overshadow the release announcement.
> 
> Okay. So for me it seems as if a planned release early December is the
> main problem: either the release slips no more than 2 weeks or it will
> slip for more than 5 weeks.
> 
> Having only 2 weeks of spare time is a major risk.

What I'd like to suggest is to move the target release dates to early
May and November. Or would this create a conflict with any holiday
season we care about?

In order not to have a very short release cycle for 4.11 I'd do the
shift in two steps (so 4.11 target release date mid of May, 4.12 early
November).

What do you think?


Juergen

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