Hi Gabriel,
1. I'm a +1 on having regular releases between LTS ones and the reasoning behind it. While stability is great, it will also be nice to have a "pilot" as you mentioned which the community can test and issues are resolved in the following LTS, rather than waiting for 2 - 3 releases to get something allegedly stable in, which could still have issues reported by users. 2. I'm for having 1 Regular release (Mar-Apr) followed by an LTS one (~6 months down the line) each year. Wrt the LTS releases, they should be supported for 1.5 to 2 years (at least 6 months after the following LTS is out). If that might be too much then a single alternating release annually around the same dates 3. No strong opinion on this but it does seem like a good idea, but not sure how religiously people will update the new page with every feature they intend to add and follow up on it ________________________________ From: Gabriel Bräscher <gabrasc...@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 11:14 PM To: dev <dev@cloudstack.apache.org> Subject: [Discussion] Release Cycle Hello, I would like to open a discussion regarding the project release cycle. More specifically on the following topics: 1. LTS and Regular releases 2. Releases period 3. Enhance roadmap and Release cycle for users #### 1 LTS and Regular releases It has been a while since the last regular release. Nowadays there are only LTS releases; maybe we should get back to having regular versions in between LTS. With a “Regular” release users would be able to trade stability for new features. Additionally, developers and users would have a “pilot” of the next LTS which could anticipate issues and result in a stable long-term release. Please, let me know what you think of this. Should we get back to releasing Regular releases in between LTS releases? For reference, here follow the past releases: +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | Release | Type | Release date | EOL | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.15 | LTS | 19 Jan 2021 | 1 July 2022 | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.14 | LTS | 26 May 2020 | 1 Jan 2022 | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.13 | LTS | 24 Sep. 2019 | 1 May 2021 | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.12 | Regular | 4 April 2019 | N/A | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.11 | LTS | 12 Feb. 2018 | 1 July 2019 | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.10 | Regular | 6 July 2017 | N/A | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ | 4.9 | LTS | 25 July 2016 | 1 July 2018 | +---------+---------+--------------+-------------+ #### 2 Releases period We had in the past a new LTS per year. Then, we got into two new LTS per year. This led from having 2 LTS maintained at the same time to 3. With that said, I think this is neither documented nor has it been discussed in the ML. We have the LTS minimum and maximum support dates well defined, but so far there is no definition/guidelines towards the release period. I would like to open this discussion so we can update the CloudStack wiki page [https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/LTS] and have a clear definition of when the community should expect each release. #### 3 Enhance roadmap and Release cycle for users This topic is an extension of Topic 2. Once we have “Topic 2” well defined we will be able to present a draft of future releases. The main idea of this email is to look for project stability and predictability with a release cycle/roadmap similar to what is done by Ubuntu [https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle]. We would then be able to give users and developers a roadmap to look after. I would also suggest such a release cycle to be presented on the website, in addition to the “cwiki” page [ https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/LTS]. Please let me know what you think. Best regards, Gabriel.
