Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] docs/process/xen-release-management: Lesson to learn

[Julien Grall <julien.grall@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ian,

On 13/12/17 12:02, Ian Jackson wrote:
> The 4.10 release preparation was significantly more hairy than ideal.
> (We seem to have a good overall outcome despite, rather than because
> of, our approach.)
>
> This is the second time (at least) that we have come close to failure
> by committing to a release date before the exact code to be released
> is known and has been made and tested.
This is a little more complicate than that. As you are part of the 
security team, you are fully aware why we chose this date.
For the other, this release was delayed because of XSA published again 
~2 weeks after the scheduled release. We were also constraint with the 
Christmas period coming up, the latest we could release was the week of 
the 13th.
That's why testing with XSAs was requested on the security-ml before 
hand. However, this was mistakenly done on rc7 rather than rc8.
As it seems, it is becoming more frequent to have XSAs around the 
release. It is getting increasingly more difficult to make a choice on 
the date.
This decision is not helped by the testing that have been quite 
unreliable due to heisenbug.
To be honest, if we had to follow your suggestion below. We would need 
to get the tree completely frozen 2-3 weeks before the actual date.
Cheers,

> Evidently our docs makes it insufficiently clear not to do that.
>
> CC: Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx>
> CC: Julien Grall <julien.grall@xxxxxxx>
> CC: Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>   docs/process/xen-release-management.pandoc | 5 +++++
>   1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/docs/process/xen-release-management.pandoc 
> b/docs/process/xen-release-management.pandoc
> index 2ff0665..eee5dcf 100644
> --- a/docs/process/xen-release-management.pandoc
> +++ b/docs/process/xen-release-management.pandoc
> @@ -211,6 +211,11 @@ https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Category:Xen_4.9
>       Ask them to dry-run their checklist and confirm everything is OK. If not,
>       arrange another RC and restart this checklist.
>   
> +7. Do not commit to a release date until
> +
> +    * The exact xen.git commit id to be released is known.
> +    * That commit id has been satisfactorily tested.
> +
>   7. Give PR Personnel final go-ahead, and instruct Release Technician to make
>   release deliverables (tags and tarballs - will usually be in place the day
>   before the release). At this point, PR collateral will be sent to reporters
--
Julien Grall

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