Re: [gentoo-releng] 2004.2 planning

[Kumba]

Kurt Lieber wrote:

> I didn't see Bob's original message, but he, Pieter and now myself are
> going to be saying exactly the same thing.
>
> Quarterly releases are too ambitious.  We need to slow down.
>
> Right now, we're so focused on quarterly releases that we cannot take
> enough time to develop features that may take longer than three months to
> code, test and get ready to go.
>
> As Pieter pointed out earlier, if we want to release something in July and
> do proper QA on it ahead of time, we don't really have much time to do any
> actual *development*.  Who cares if we're releasing 4 new versions a year
> if they're all identical save for minor cosmetic/typo stuff?
>
> Quarterly releases need to stop.

Switching to a different release schedule in the middle of 2004 could 
cause confusion for users.  So here's my idea:

For the remainder of 2004, release our quarterly releases, this means 
2004.2 and 2004.3.  Take a big break during the summer for all the 
emerge enchancements (including --security) and consider making 2004.2 
in late july or early august, followed by 2004.3 in late october or 
early november.

For 2005, One idea which still provides semi-frequent gentoo releases 
could be going from a quarterly release schedule to a tri-annual release 
schedule, i.e., one every four months.  That's still more than other 
distros, but it also strikes a nice balance by allowing an average of 
probably 3 months for hacking/enhanching, followed by probably a month 
or so of the fun process of stage/grp building/testing before release.

So for 2005, you could do something like:

Late Jan -- 2005.0
Late May -- 2005.1
Late Sep -- 2005.2


Thoughts?


--Kumba

-- 
"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: 
small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are 
elsewhere."  --Elrond

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