I think we could be a bit more lax with the KIP freeze of 6.7.0 when 2034 comes around to account for LNY :)
Joking aside, my preference between "KIP freeze would be Wednesday's, weeks 9 / 25 / 41, with feature freeze +3 weeks, and code freeze +2 weeks" and "start Q1 release with X buffer after LYN and complete Q3 release with Y buffer before Christmas" would be to start with the first and adjust by shifting by 1 week on individual basis the ones which are too close. I am okay with too close being defined as 2 weeks. Based on your very detailed tables we seem to have only a few such outliers in the next decade. Best, Christo On Fri, 29 May 2026 at 08:35, Chia-Ping Tsai <[email protected]> wrote: > > Matthias, you are definitely a master of scheduling! I'm +100 to your plans. > > Also, it is absolutely helpful to write down the exact release dates for the > next few years at once. It will ease our anxiety a lot! I'd be more than > happy to update the wiki with these dates once we all agree on this new > schedule. For example: > > Version KIP Freeze Feature Freeze Code Freeze Target Release > 4.4.0 Jun 17, 2026 Jul 8, 2026 Jul 22, 2026 Aug 19, 2026 > 4.5.0 Oct 7, 2026 Oct 28, 2026 Nov 11, 2026 Dec 9, 2026 > 4.6.0 Mar 3, 2027 Mar 24, 2027 Apr 7, 2027 May 5, 2027 > 4.7.0 Jun 23, 2027 Jul 14, 2027 Jul 28, 2027 Aug 25, 2027 > 4.8.0 Oct 13, 2027 Nov 3, 2027 Nov 17, 2027 Dec 15, 2027 > 4.9.0 Mar 1, 2028 Mar 22, 2028 Apr 5, 2028 May 3, 2028 > 5.0.0 Jun 21, 2028 Jul 12, 2028 Jul 26, 2028 Aug 23, 2028 > 5.1.0 Oct 11, 2028 Nov 1, 2028 Nov 15, 2028 Dec 13, 2028 > > Furthermore, let's do our best to avoid fixing release blockers under the > Christmas tree :) > > On 2026/05/28 21:22:51 "Matthias J. Sax" wrote: > > Thanks for the input. > > > > Overall, it seems that 3+2 weeks for feature freeze / code freeze > > windows gets a lot of support. > > > > However, the idea of dividing the release windows not into 3 equally > > long junks, but be more flexible to account for holiday seasons, seems > > not to get a lot of support? Not sure why... I personally think it would > > be good to take it into account, and I also think that Chia-Ping raises > > a very good point. > > > > > > > > @Chia-Ping: Other holidays are a great point. Thanks for raising it. I > > did actually briefly think about it, but it's difficult, and thus I just > > started with something simple as proposal to kick off a discussion. > > > > I think, Diwali is short enough to not make it a concern (similar to > > Thanksgiving)? > > > > For Lunar New Year, I agree that it would be good to plan for it. > > However, it seems it's shifting quite a lot year-over-year what makes it > > very difficult (w/o a huge window) to include? > > > > Overall, a 5 / 3.5 / 3.5 schedule seems to be quite unbalanced (this > > would be 22 / 15 / 15 weeks per release? And two very short 3.5 month > > releases does not sound very appealing? > > > > > > I was playing with it a little bit more. Overall we have 52 weeks, so > > roughly 17.3 weeks per release. So we can naturally split it into > > 17/17/18 using the additional week for the holidays. But that's not good > > enough to take both Christmas and Lunar New Year into account. However, > > with a 16/16/20, we could make it work I believe, even if it does cut it > > tight sometimes... To be able to phrase a "simple rule", we can use ISO > > weeks: > > > > KIP freeze would be Wednesday's, weeks 9 / 25 / 41, with feature freeze > > +3 weeks, and code freeze +2 weeks. > > > > Ie, we put the first KIP freeze after LNY with plenty of buffer for most > > years: > > > > > > > > ┌──────┬────────┬────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐ > > > │ Year │ LNY │ Q1 KIP freeze (week 9 Wed) │ Buffer > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2027 │ Feb 6 │ Mar 3 │ 25 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2028 │ Jan 26 │ Mar 1 │ 34 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2029 │ Feb 13 │ Feb 28 │ 15 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2030 │ Feb 3 │ Feb 27 │ 24 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2031 │ Jan 23 │ Feb 26 │ 34 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2032 │ Feb 11 │ Feb 25 │ 14 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2033 │ Jan 31 │ Mar 2 │ 30 days > > > │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2034 │ Feb 19 │ Mar 1 │ 10 days ← tightest with > > > realistic LNY │ > > > > > > ├──────┼────────┼────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤ > > > │ 2035 │ Feb 8 │ Feb 28 │ 20 days > > > │ > > > > > > └──────┴────────┴────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘ > > > > Guess, we could also make it week-8 instead of 9, and accept that 2034 > > would cut it too short (or be even more flexible and keep week-9 for > > 2034 as an exception to the rule), but that's a single year... for 2029 > > and 2032 we still have one week buffer. > > > > For Christmas, we would still ensure that the release can go out on > > time, too. The below Q3 target release date is 4 weeks after code > > freeze. This is a little bit more tight, as we often need more than 4 > > weeks to get it done: > > > > > ┌──────┬──────────────────────────┬────────────────┐ > > > │ Year │ Q3 release (week 50 Wed) │ Days to Dec 25 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2026 │ Dec 9 │ 16 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2027 │ Dec 15 │ 10 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2028 │ Dec 13 │ 12 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2029 │ Dec 12 │ 13 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2030 │ Dec 11 │ 14 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2031 │ Dec 10 │ 15 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2032 │ Dec 8 │ 17 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2033 │ Dec 14 │ 11 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2034 │ Dec 13 │ 12 │ > > > ├──────┼──────────────────────────┼────────────────┤ > > > │ 2035 │ Dec 12 │ 13 │ > > > └──────┴──────────────────────────┴────────────────┘ > > > > > > > > For some years, we would still cut it a little bit tight, but we could > > also apply an exception to the rule, to compensate for it. If we have > > enough buffer room from LYN, we can start the Q1 release train a week > > earlier, reducing the Q3->Q1 timeline by one week. > > > > > > Curious to hear what people think about it. In the end, if we can agree > > on high level rules like "start Q1 release with X buffer after LYN", and > > "complete Q3 release with Y buffer before Christmas", and still aim for > > an as balance week-allocation per release, we can just put together a > > release plan for the next 10 years and be done with it. > > > > > > -Matthias > > > > > > > > On 5/28/26 3:51 AM, Christo Lolov wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > > > Thanks for pushing for this! I can confirm that the 4.2.0's release > > > coincided with a reasonable amount of holidays, so I would favour a > > > 3+2 schedule with releases in March, July and November. > > > > > > Best, > > > Christo > > > > > > On Thu, 28 May 2026 at 07:05, Ismael Juma <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > > >> Hi, > > >> > > >> On Wed, May 27, 2026 at 12:44 AM Andrew Schofield <[email protected]> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > >>> I would go for 3 releases of equal lengths in March, July and November. > > >>> I > > >>> favour the 3+2 schedule. > > >>> > > >> > > >> +1 > > >> > > >> Thanks, > > >> Ismael > > > >
