On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 8:29 AM Julian Foad <julianf...@apache.org> wrote:
> Mark Phippard wrote: > > Also, as brane already pointed out, this would also be making a mockery > of regular releases. > I'll throw this wacky idea out there... (With endless respect for everyone here, always.) Suppose we backport the contents of 1.13-rc1 to 1.12.3 such that 1.12.3 is identical to 1.13-rc1 except for version numbers. Afterwards, merge swig-py3 to trunk, backport it to 1.13, issue 1.13-rc2, start a 4-week soak. This (wacky idea) is meant to accomplish several things: 1. We can get the important changes Julian mentioned released, as 1.12.3. 2. If I understand HACKING correctly, we can release 1.12.3 ON TIME -- meaning around the same time that we would have released 1.13, since it would be a patch release that doesn't require a 4-week soak. Please correct me if I'm mistaken on this point. And, for all practical purposes, we did a soak. 3. Packagers who have worked on 1.13-rc1 won't lose the work they've done -- PROVIDED that we communicate well that we decided to renumber it as a patch release and that they'll find all contents identical except for version numbers. I hope Mark will tell us if this would be an acceptable compromise? 4. We wouldn't "make a mockery" of regular releases, since 1.12.3 would occur at the regular time, only with a different version number than we previously thought. Some might balk at that different version number but I think that's a much better scenario than 1.14 suddenly not being the next LTS release, since we've been communicating that it would be LTS for quite some time and it suddenly not being LTS would confuse a lot of people. No one will be confused by a 1.12.3 that fixes bugs. 5. We can test the heck out of 1.13 with swig-py3 before rolling 1.13- rc2. Even if we find blocking breakage, we have time to restart the soak and still get it out there before Python 2 goes EOL. Justification for all this: While we have a release schedule (and YES, I do think we should stick to it!), Python 2 going EOL is an exceptional circumstance; and so, if this event causes our release schedule to be a bit different, I don't see that as a negative; rather, I see it as being responsive to a pretty significant change that is coming and to users who have written to us with questions and concerns about this change. Now, like I said: * I say all of this with endless respect for everyone. * I'm throwing it out there as a wacky idea. Nathan
