Well, here's an 'doing it live' example for you. This is the parent issue for our next release:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB-5854 Its only adding one more step... which is or isn't a big deal depending on how you look at it. (We have added that step btw.) Sometimes we ship multiple times a month. Thats over 50 issues to close to do that. It's like water torture; adding a drop isn't a big deal in itself but in aggregate it will bore through your skull. Working at Adobe I've learned a great deal about how 'just one more step' isn't a big deal. We're not exactly characterized as nimble, effective, efficient, or lean. That, to me, certainly is big deal. Anyhow, this discussion most certainly has a foggy cultural aspect to contrast with the direct returns in quality and predictability. On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Niall Pemberton <niall.pember...@gmail.com>wrote: > I love the release cadence - more projects should do it - and I can > understand why you fight anything that you believe would hinder that. But I > don't really get how a vote affects that - whatever cycle you're on - it > just shifts it 3 days? So if you were cutting a release on the last Friday > of every month (for example) - nothing changes for the user except that the > monthly release is available 3 days later - they still get it monthly, just > on the Monday? > > Niall > > > On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 3:25 AM, Brian LeRoux <b...@brian.io> wrote: > >> I'd like to throw out some thoughts in support of this thinking and help >> explore how we can support faster releases at Apache. >> >> Cordova has bias to shipping. We started shipping on a schedule mid 2011 >> and this was a very deliberate choice, after two years of scattered, and >> frankly reactionary, releases. >> >> At that time we called the project PhoneGap and we realized our offering >> was playing cat and mouse with the very fast moving dependencies of iOS and >> Android. Being reactionary made shipping a fire drill, inevitably drawn out >> since we didn't exercise those muscles enough, and ultimately this made our >> software a risk for adoption. We didn't want to be a risk for adoption. We >> also did not want our volunteer committership killing themselves every time >> iOS or Android landed a patch. >> >> Moving to a schedule acted as a forcing function to exercise those >> muscles, find our cadence, and only positives to the code and community >> resulted. Shipping brought our core together. It meant if we didn't have a >> fix for a feature the branch would land in the next release which is only a >> month away. This built huge confidence in our team by our community. Our >> code become better tested, and more streamlined. A consistent release >> cadence not only helped us find more quality in our code, but that >> confidence really helped us build our committer and developer community. >> The story is hardly unique: Chrome, Ubuntu, Docker, Firefox, and many >> others have adopted this model in recent years. >> >> I feel anything that can be considered a better practice for higher >> quality code and driving community confidence, and subsequently adoption, >> really embodies Apache ideals. >> >> The current process could be largely automated and the vote doesn't >> necessarily have to be in the form of an email. I've found these past weeks >> the act of voting seems near cultural at Apache so I hope that doesn't >> sound crazy! I mean well. >> >> Another issue I am personally unclear on is the wide variety of artifacts >> destinations that an Apache project can be shipped today. Maven has some of >> these smarts built in but projects like the npm registry do not. Another >> area we need to address is the proliferation of various app stores. I'm not >> a fan of them, but they happen, and we should have a mechanism for our >> projects to deliver to them. >> >> >> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 3:02 AM, Stephen Connolly < >> stephen.alan.conno...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> One of the projects I am involved with is the Jenkins project. At >>> Jenkins we cut a release of Jenkins every wednesday... assuming the test >>> all pass... >>> Not every release is as stable as people might desire (the tests don't >>> catch everything), hence there is the LTS release line, but none the less, >>> there is a major release every 7 days... and if you look at the usage stats >>> (e.g. http://stats.jenkins-ci.org/jenkins-stats/svg/201312-jenkins.svg) >>> most users actually stick fairly close to the latest release. >>> >>> I have found that this 7 day release cadence can be really helpful for >>> some code bases. >>> >>> When I started to think about could we follow this model for the Maven >>> project as we move towards Maven 4.0, there is one thing that gets in the >>> way... namely release votes. >>> >>> The standard answer is that we could publish snapshots... but those are >>> not indented for use by users... and where the cadence can help is that >>> these things can be picked up by users. >>> >>> So what is it that gets in the way with release votes: >>> >>> * The 72h "soft" requirement for vote duration >>> >>> * The actions that a PMC member is required to perform before they can >>> vote. See http://www.apache.org/dev/release which states: >>> >>> > Before voting +1 PMC members are required to download the signed >>> source code package, compile it as provided, and test the resulting >>> executable on their own platform, along with also verifying that the >>> package meets the requirements of the ASF policy on releases. >>> >>> So how exactly do these things get in the way? >>> >>> Well as I see it the 72h vote duration isn't necessarily a big deal... >>> we need some duration of notice about what is going into the release, there >>> will always be people who feel the duration is either too short or two >>> long... but with a 7 day cadence and maybe a few hours before the release >>> manager closes out the vote and then you wait for the release to finished >>> syncing to the mirrors and then the release manager gets a chance to verify >>> that the release has synced to at least one mirror... you could easily lose >>> half a day's duration in that process... oh look the release is out 3.5 >>> days after it was cut... and we're cutting another one in 3.5 days... it is >>> likely we will not get much meaningful feedback from users in the remaining >>> 3.5 days... so essentially you end up with a ping-pong of break... skip... >>> fix since if a bleeding edge user finds an issue in 4.0.56 we will have cut >>> 4.0.57 by the time they report it to us and the fix ends up in 4.0.58... >>> with a shorter vote duration, say 12h, the bleeding edge user reports the >>> issue, we fix and the next release is the one they can use. >>> >>> In the context of a fast cadence, where every committer in the community >>> knows there will be a release on wednesday cut from the last revision that >>> passed all the tests on the CI system unless there have been no commits >>> since the last release that meet that criteria, do we need to wait the full >>> 72h for a vote? Would 12h be sufficient (assuming the 3 PMC +1's get cast >>> during those 12h... and if not, well just extend until enough votes are >>> cast) >>> >>> I think this is different use case from my understanding of the concerns >>> that drove the 72h vote duration convention, as this would not be 3 PMC >>> members who all work for the same company and are in the same location >>> conspiring to drive their changes into the release... everything would be >>> happening in the open and a 12h window mid-week should allow at least 4h of >>> waking time in any TZ. >>> >>> So the second issue is what a PMC member is required to do before >>> voting... >>> >>> As a PMC member you are required to >>> >>> 1. Download the source code package >>> 2. Compile it as provided >>> 3. Test the resulting executable on your own platform >>> 4. Verify that the package meets the requirements of the ASF policy on >>> releases >>> >>> Do we really have to personally do all that *by hand*? >>> >>> Why can we not have a trusted build server hosted on Apache hardware do >>> the download of the source package, compile it as provided and run the >>> automated acceptance tests (on a range of platforms), the RAT tooling and >>> perhaps verify that the source code package matches what is in source >>> control? The trusted build server could then report the results to the >>> project mailing list and then the PMC members just need to confirm the >>> build server said OK, review the commits between the last time they looked >>> at the commits and the tag (which they know matches what is in the source >>> bundle) and then vote +1? >>> >>> The PMC members are supposed to be keeping an eye on the commits anyway, >>> so that shouldn't be too onerous, and the release manager could even >>> provide a link to the build server confirmation build in the VOTE email. >>> >>> I would appreciate any people's thoughts on the above. >>> >>> -Stephen >>> >>> P.S. >>> * Speaking in my personal capacity as a member of the ASF. >>> * I am not saying that Maven will move to such a model, or even wants >>> to move to such a model... more that I was thinking about the issues that >>> might prevent us if we so desired... I know other projects at Apache are >>> interested in fast release cadence however, so getting this topic discussed >>> in the open is no bad thing IMHO >>> >>> >> >
