I beleive freeze date estimates to be useful for developers to help to
prepair for a release. "As usual, the release goals and the release date
are not going to be determined in advance. To put it simply, "Debian
releases when it is time"."[1] That doesn't mean people like me can't
speculate, and in fact I have already speculated on release goals [2].
I've already been wrong about Gnome2 entering testing though...
Time to sarge freeze?
- The Security team shouldn't have to audit/support Sarge, Woody and
Potato so wait until after June 2003 [3].
- The debian-installer needs to be finnished (2 months?)
- The gcc 3.3 transition needs to complete (3 months?)
- XFree86 4.2.1-7 or 4.3.0 should be completed (2 months?)
- Gnome2 should to go into testing (1 month?)
- KDE should go into testing (4 months?)
- apt and dpkg version for sarge should be decided, internationalization?
cvs updates? hooks? (4 months?)
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6 months (4 months max plus 2 months worth of glitches and
forgoten stuff)
That being said we (the RM actually) could call the exsisting installer
finnished, treat the gcc 3.3 transition issues as RC bugs (as they are,
including the XFree86 ones), throw Gnome2, KDE, apt and dpkg into testing
and call a freeze... we could even throw away Gnome2 and/or KDE. I expect
there will be a freeze this year though.
Time to sarge?
- The Security team should probably have at least half a month, if not
several months, to make sure all the security updates are in each
section after they have been frozen.
- I estimate the freeze cycle will take 6 months because many of the
freeze cycle(s) problems with potato and woody have been addressed
(maybe that's overly optimistic, addressed means discussed and some/all
fixed/worked around?). (6 months?)
-----
12 months (6 months before freeze? + 6 months of freeze?)
[1] http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200304/msg01015.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200305/msg00271.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200306/msg00112.html
and likely monthly, and maybe even a web site. I'll be apending the word
unofficial though as it is speculation.
[3]
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/debian-devel-announce-200302/msg00010.html
Potato will have "security updates at least until end of June 2003". You
"should not expect security updates for potato after the end of June 2003."
==================================================
Below is some related information of perhaps historical signifigance.
==================================================
Timeline for potato
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/1999/debian-devel-announce-199912/msg00010.html
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2 months of freeze time predicted (actualy 48 to 64 days)
http://www.debian.org/releases/potato/
Potato was released on August 14th, 2000
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8.5 months of actual freeze time?
==================================================
Woody Freeze Plans
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2001/debian-devel-announce-200102/msg00014.html
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4.25 months ("overly optimistic" freeze time)
Woody Freeze Plans - Progress Report
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2001/debian-devel-announce-200104/msg00004.html
* 1 month for prevue release
* 1 month for a policy freeze
* 1 month for base system freeze (no new packages in standard)
* 1/2 month standard frozen, no new packages in optional/extra
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3.5 months of freeze time (still "overly optimistic")
Woody Freeze Plans - Progress Report II
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2001/debian-devel-announce-200105/msg00003.html
* 1/2 month for prevue release (implied)
* 1 month for policy freeze
+ 1/2 month to fix RC bugs in Base packages when the
policy is frozen-base frozen
* 1 month for "Boot-floppies, standard packages, task packages,
and packages included in tasks or in boot-floppies need all their
release-critical bugs fixed"
* 1 month for the "remaining packages (optional, extra) need their
release-critical bugs fixed by 1st September, and no further
changes may be made to them after about 20th September."
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3.5 months of freeze time (still "overly optimistic")
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2001/debian-devel-announce-200106/msg00014.html
Woody Freeze Begins 1 Jul 2001
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/
Woody released on 19th of July, 2002
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12.5 months of freeze time. Note that there were many problems
that will not occure with Sarge freezing (I'll call them
different if there are any <G>)
==================================================
Drew Daniels
