Re: [Xen-devel] Xen release cycle revisited

[George Dunlap <dunlapg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 2:54 PM, Juergen Gross <jgross@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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?

I think one concern was that if we release in early May, the feature
freeze would be early March, which will often be right after Chinese
New Year (a bit like having the feature freeze on January 5).

But having the feature freeze up shortly after a major holiday is
probably less bad than having the release shortly before a major
holiday (as we have had this time).

> 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).

 That would work for  me.

 -George

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