On Aug 10, 2013, at 4:13 PM, Leif Hedstrom <zw...@apache.org> wrote: > Hi all, > > I started a wiki with some ideas on how to streamline and simplify the > release process: > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TS/New+Release+Processes > > > I'd like to start the discussion on this, and come to a consensus before next > stable release. One key decision here is what the next stable release should > be versioned (I'm suggesting we make it v4.0, with no micro version). The > alternative is to keep it as we had planned, which would be v3.4.0. > > Please discuss, and lets make the updates to that doc as appropriate. Also, > if the consensus is to leave the release process as is, we should make that > decision as well in the next 2 weeks.
I'm going to ramble a bit here .... The most successful release process I've been a part of was the IRIX release process. We released every 3 months like clockwork. Every release was guaranteed to be forwards and backwards compatible with the previous releases. That strong guarantee is what allows the rapid release cycle to work, because people have confidence that upgrading will not be an unpleasant experience. I'm generally in favour of having a single release train that we push regularly. Every three months seems like a reasonable time frame, given the amount of work involved in packaging, deployment and release management. The key to making this work is to prove that we can deliver a strong compatibility guarantee. In order to make a strong compatibility guarantee, we need to make sure that master is always in a releasable state, that we always provide correct configuration upgrade tools, never regress performance, etc. Do we currently have sufficient test and performance coverage to be comfortable that we can do that? We would also need to define a support period, and be prepared to support all the releases within that period. This might interact poorly with Linux distributions, many of which will have longer release cycles. OTOH, if we can do compatibility correctly, maybe they would feel comfortable shipping the latest release in point updates ... J
