+1 too. I also think it's a much more reasonable target. And I think that making our release schedule more reliable should be a strong part of that change. For that, I wonder if having a more organized QA period (basically a more codified release schedule) could be beneficial. I won't hide that in my opinion our current freeze-that-don't-freeze-much is not as much a useful tool than it could be.
For instance, I could imagine something like: - 4 month dev - 2 month before release: soft freeze, where we stop including "big" issues and re-prioritize issues needed to get a consistent release. We could also release the first beta like a week max after that. - 3 weeks before release: hard freeze, where we really do focus on fixing bugs only - 2 weeks before release: first RC release. I'll precise that what we have so far has only be a soft freeze. I do think that having a hard freeze would be beneficial to improve the final release reliability and help towards releasing on time. Of course, all this is open to discussion. -- Sylvain On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Brandon Williams <dri...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am very +1 on this. I think Cassandra has matured to a point that > warrants this. > > On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Jonathan Ellis <jbel...@gmail.com> wrote: >> After the 0.7 release we decided to shoot for a fixed four-month >> release cycle. I think now is a good time to re-evaluate this, and >> possibly change to target a six month cycle: >> >> - Speaking for DataStax, about half our time is spent on maintenance. >> Given this, a 3 month window just isn't much time to work on some of >> the larger features we have planned. >> >> - Most of the schedule slip has been in our post-freeze QA period. A >> six month cycle would allow a more realistic 6 or even 8 weeks of QA, >> while still expanding the dev window. >> >> - Cassandra has matured enough that there is less low-hanging fruit to >> pick; two potential upgrades per year feels better matched to that, >> than three. >> >> - The reality has been that 0.8, 1.0, and 1.1 took about 5, 5.5, and 6 >> months, respectively. So in a sense, officially making it a 6-month >> cycle would only be acknowledging reality anyway. >> >> Thoughts? >> >> -- >> Jonathan Ellis >> Project Chair, Apache Cassandra >> co-founder of DataStax, the source for professional Cassandra support >> http://www.datastax.com
