[ANNOUNCE] Xen 4.15 - release status, branching tomorrow

[Ian Jackson <iwj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think things are looking in reasonable shape.

I intend to branch off the 4.15 stable branch tomorrow.  I will then
turn off debug on that branch.  There will be a commit moratorium in
force for much of the afternoon while the branching is done -
commmitters please check your mail or irc.

Any outstanding patches that have a release-ack but have not yet been
committed should go in ASAP, and certainly by Friday.

I have reviewed my list of blockers and the conversation that followed
and there are just three areas that are still of concern to me:

* io-apic issue on Ryzen 1800X

   Related Qubes issue tracking this:
   https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/6423
   Information from
     Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>
     Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>
     Frédéric Pierret <frederic.pierret@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

  Are we likely to get a fix in the next few days ?

  I think it may be time to reconcile ourselves to not fixing this,
  and deciding on a suitable plan B.  Do we need to put something in
  the release notes, or SUPPORT.md, or implement a mitigation of some
  kind ?

* Subject: Re: xenstore_lib.h and libxenstore API/ABI problems

   In the last mail in that thread, I wrote:   

   | I suggest, instead, that we:
   |
   | In 4.15:
   |
   |  * Retain the current soname, but:
   |  * Delete the tdb internals from the header file and cease to export
   |    those symbols.
   |  * Rename the expanding_buffer and sanitise_value functions, to
   |    properly namespace them, and move them to a private header.
   |
   | This is of course technically a breach of the ABI stability rules but
   | for the reasons I [give above] I don't think it will cause anyone any
   | trouble.

   I don't think I have seen any patches in this area.  I'm concerned
   that this is getting late.  I suspect we may have to punt this to
   xen-next.

 * Release notes (feature list), SUPPORT.md.  This is on my plate,
   although George is helping with the feature list (thanks!)

Thanks,
Ian.