Re: [Xen-devel] RFC: change to 6 months release cycle

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 05.10.15 at 13:23, <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 05, 2015 at 05:04:19AM -0600, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> >>> On 02.10.15 at 19:43, <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > The main objection from previous discussion seems to be that "shorter
>> > release cycle creates burdens for downstream projects". I couldn't
>> > quite get the idea, but I think we can figure out a way to sort that
>> > out once we know what exactly the burdens are.
>> 
>> I don't recall it that way. My main objection remains the resulting
>> higher burden of maintaining stable trees. Right now, most of the
>> time we have two trees to maintain. A 6-month release cycle means
>> three of them (shortening the time we maintain those trees doesn't
>> seem a viable option to me).
>> 
>> Similar considerations apply to security maintenance of older trees.
>> 
> 
> Sorry, my memory failed me. So the major objection is the maintenance
> burden of stable releases.
> 
> What do you consider "must-have"s when it comes to stable releases?
> 
> The only "must-have" to me is that we need stable releases. This
> doesn't preclude us from exploring other options to achieve that goal.
> 
> Just to throw around some ideas: we can have more stable tree
> maintainers, we can pick a stable tree every X releases etc etc.

Both points we have been discussing before:

More stable tree maintainers means higher total cost (there's certainly
some amortization if a single person maintains the same [parts of the]
tree everywhere), plus an increased chance for certain backports
ending up in only some of the trees (clearly bad if a newer one retains
a bug that got fixed in an older one).

Picking a release (or a longer term maintained one) results in some
releases being "better" than others.

Jan


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