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

[Julien Grall <julien.grall@xxxxxxx>]

On 27/04/18 15:32, Ian Jackson wrote:
> George Dunlap writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] docs/process/xen-release-management: 
> Lesson to learn"):
> > How would you apply this directive to the particular situation we
> > found ourselves in this time?
> >
> > As a reminder:
> >
> > * Around 3 December, we didn't think we'd be ready to release until 11 December
> > * The security team had already set an embargo for 12 December
> > * Our PR people advised us that 13 or 14 December would be the last
> > suitable day to announce a release in order to have an impact before
> > Christmas
If we had missed the 13 or 14 December, we would had to push the release 
beginning of January because in fine we do rely on PR for promoting Xen.
However, we also had Spectre/Meltdown scheduled for beginning of January 
(I was aware of it when we took the decision). It would have been quite 
difficult to release Xen 4.10 without that security fixes. This would 
have meant another push back of the release.
> Well, we could put off the release.
>
> I guess I'm being quite selfish here.  I'm usually the release
> technician.  Doing release preparation at the last minute and in
> strange ways means lots of opportunity for me to make mistakes.
>
> I would like to put something in the release checklist that stops
> people putting me in a difficult position where I am (a) likely to
> make mistakes (b) those mistakes will be embarrassing.
>
> Putting this in the release checklist doesn't mean that it always has
> to be followed, of course.  Checklists are not rules; they are
> guidelines.
>
> But if this guideline is violated, and as a result I mess something up
> due to having to do a lot of complicated, ad-hoc, un-qa-able, work,
> all in a hurry, then it would be nice if it were obvious that the
> cause of the trouble was the decision to take this risk, rather than
> my carelessness or lack of attention to detail.
>
> As it happens this last December we lucked out.
While I understand this was not ideal, I still think it was the best 
solution we had at that time. I would be interested to know what you 
would have chosen with the situation we had.
        - Would you have released without the XSAs?
        - When would you have released Xen?

Cheers,

--
Julien Grall

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