On 04/08/2012 11:54 PM, Stas Malyshev wrote:
Hi!

5.4.1 will be the first release we're releasing using our new git setup.
I would like to refine a process that we used to have for releases and
make small tweaks hopefully to allow us more predictable release
schedule and faster releases.
What I am proposing is the following:
1. At the start of the cycle, PHP-5.4.X is branched off PHP-5.4. This is
done on Monday/Tuesday (days can be tweaked back&forth a bit, but I
assume we'll usually release on Thursday and count back from that).
2. This branch is checked by RM to compile, pass unit tests
satisfactory, etc. and is released as 5.4.X RC1
3. In two weeks, if no critical errors is found in RC1, the same branch
is released as 5.4.X. If any critical errors are found, RM cherry-pick
fixes from 5.4 and release RC2 (RC3, etc. as needed) each two weeks
after no criticial bugs are in 5.4.X branch.
4. In two more weeks, 5.4.(X+1) starts, provided we have changes from
5.4.X. If not, it is postponed by 2 weeks.

It is somewhat different from what we did before as we never disallow
committing into 5.4 and never allow (direct) committing into 5.4.X. This
also means we will be releasing 2-weeks-old code (or maybe older), i.e.
we will frequently be releasing code which has known (and fixed in other
branch) bugs.

This will also mean we will have to define what constitutes critical
error, and maybe raise the bar a bit. I would like to propose the
following criteria for critical error:
1. Compilation failure on a major platform (Linux, Windows, Mac, maybe
some others at RM discretion)
2. Remotely exploitable security problem
3. Bug that breaks a large piece of widely used functionality, effective
rendering it unusable (i.e. if somebody broke fopen() and it always
returned false).
Other things may be added on case-by-case basis but this will be the
guidelines. All other changes go into the next release.

I think doing it this way will allow us to have 5.4.X releases monthly
as we planned in the release RFC. This will also mean that there would
be almost constant lag between committing regular fix and releasing it,
which may be larger than we had before. I think it won't be too bad if
we had regular monthly releases.

Comments?

Stas,

I'm fine with this.

I would like to see clarity on when fixes have been merged to the RC
branch (git emails are still a bit hard to grok).  It would help to
have early communication about fixes you have decided against so we
can argue their merits and so we don't assume you are planning to pick
them up.

Chris

--
Email: christopher.jo...@oracle.com
Tel:  +1 650 506 8630
Blog:  http://blogs.oracle.com/opal/

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