Are you brave enough to manage a Subversion release?

[Hyrum K Wright <hy...@wandisco.com>]

In December of 2007, it had been over 4 months since our prior patch
release, 1.4.5, and I was getting impatient.  The then-current release
manager had moved on to other things, but I had some bug fixes that I
wanted shipped.  So, after reading the docs, and with quite a bit of
hubris, I rolled a set of candidate tarballs and posted them for
people to sign.  It took me a few tries to get it right, but even
though I'd only been hacking on the project for a year or two, I
became the de facto release manager.  4 years, 26 releases, 2.5
children and 1 soon-to-be-PhD later, I'd like to start helping others
learn the release manager role for our project.

I've got a few reasons for doing this, primary among them is
increasing the bus factor.  Also, in the last several months, I've
written a lot of tooling and docs surrounding our release process.
I'd like to give somebody relatively unfamiliar with that environment
a chance to go through the process, to ensure all the required
information is properly recorded.  I'm happy to do some handholding as
we go through.  I don't plan on going anywhere, but having multiple
folks able to cut and publish releases would make me feel much more
comfortable in the unlikely event that I did.

If you are interested, let me know.  The key RM qualities are:
responsiveness to the community, familiarity with the project
guidelines, and the ability and patience to herd cats / push string /
other metaphor here.  This *isn't* a job application, and I'm not in
the business of anointing a successor.  Ultimately, the community will
make the decisions, and whoever is willing to do the work will do the
work.

-Hyrum

PS - Also, let me dispel any delusions of grandeur folks may have
about the release manager role.  My name goes on the release
announcements, but really the role is more about the "manager" than
the "release".  I'm just a reflection of the community.


-- 

uberSVN: Apache Subversion Made Easy
http://www.uberSVN.com/

Re: Are you brave enough to manage a Subversion release?

[Hyrum K Wright <hy...@wandisco.com>]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 04:11:59PM -0600, Hyrum K Wright wrote:
>> though I'd only been hacking on the project for a year or two, I
>> became the de facto release manager.  4 years, 26 releases, 2.5
>> children and 1 soon-to-be-PhD later, I'd like to start helping others
>> learn the release manager role for our project.
>
> Count me in as a volunteer.
> I can try to make some time for a training session next week.

Great!  Now that the holidays are over, I'll be on IRC pretty
regularly, but I'd hope they existing documentation speaks for itself,
which is one of the goals of this exercise.  So I'd encourage you to
start there, and then ping me where clarification is required (or when
my highly-customized scripts become bustificated beyond all
recognition).

> I suppose handing around the RM hat on occasions where you are busy or
> indisposed would be something we could easily manage as a community,
> once you've trained a couple lieutenants.

Yep, that's the hope.

-Hyrum


-- 

uberSVN: Apache Subversion Made Easy
http://www.uberSVN.com/

Re: Are you brave enough to manage a Subversion release?

[Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>]

On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 04:11:59PM -0600, Hyrum K Wright wrote:
> though I'd only been hacking on the project for a year or two, I
> became the de facto release manager.  4 years, 26 releases, 2.5
> children and 1 soon-to-be-PhD later, I'd like to start helping others
> learn the release manager role for our project.

Count me in as a volunteer.
I can try to make some time for a training session next week.

I suppose handing around the RM hat on occasions where you are busy or 
indisposed would be something we could easily manage as a community,
once you've trained a couple lieutenants.

Re: Are you brave enough to manage a Subversion release?

[Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012, at 21:07, Hyrum K Wright wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:54 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 3, 2012, at 16:11, Hyrum K Wright wrote:
> >> written a lot of tooling and docs surrounding our release process.
> >> I'd like to give somebody relatively unfamiliar with that environment
> >> a chance to go through the process, to ensure all the required
> >> information is properly recorded.  I'm happy to do some handholding as
> > ...
> >> responsiveness to the community, familiarity with the project
> >> guidelines, and the ability and patience to herd cats / push string /
> >
> > Secondly, as you say, there are two separate parts to the RM role: one
> > is the technical part --- creating tags, signing tarballs, sending
> > release announcement emails --- but the other is the community part ---
> > perhaps most obviously sending the periodical "Shall we roll a release
> > next week?" mails.
> 
> Correct, and there's no inalterable law that dictates that these have
> to be the same person.  Historically for Subversion they have been,
> though, and given the size of our development community, I think it's
> a good pattern to maintain.  (Although the technical bits can become
> increasingly scripted.

And I'll be happy to help with this.  Perhaps whoever rolls 1.7.3 can do
so in a script(1) session?

> )

Re: Are you brave enough to manage a Subversion release?

[Hyrum K Wright <hy...@wandisco.com>]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:54 PM, Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote:
> First of all, thanks for your tireless RM work over the last few years.

Thanks.  Although not without its headaches, I've gotten more out of
the experience than I have given.

> On Tue, Jan 3, 2012, at 16:11, Hyrum K Wright wrote:
>> written a lot of tooling and docs surrounding our release process.
>> I'd like to give somebody relatively unfamiliar with that environment
>> a chance to go through the process, to ensure all the required
>> information is properly recorded.  I'm happy to do some handholding as
> ...
>> responsiveness to the community, familiarity with the project
>> guidelines, and the ability and patience to herd cats / push string /
>
> Secondly, as you say, there are two separate parts to the RM role: one
> is the technical part --- creating tags, signing tarballs, sending
> release announcement emails --- but the other is the community part ---
> perhaps most obviously sending the periodical "Shall we roll a release
> next week?" mails.

Correct, and there's no inalterable law that dictates that these have
to be the same person.  Historically for Subversion they have been,
though, and given the size of our development community, I think it's
a good pattern to maintain.  (Although the technical bits can become
increasingly scripted.)

-Hyrum


-- 

uberSVN: Apache Subversion Made Easy
http://www.uberSVN.com/

Re: Are you brave enough to manage a Subversion release?

[Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>]

First of all, thanks for your tireless RM work over the last few years.

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012, at 16:11, Hyrum K Wright wrote:
> written a lot of tooling and docs surrounding our release process.
> I'd like to give somebody relatively unfamiliar with that environment
> a chance to go through the process, to ensure all the required
> information is properly recorded.  I'm happy to do some handholding as
...
> responsiveness to the community, familiarity with the project
> guidelines, and the ability and patience to herd cats / push string /

Secondly, as you say, there are two separate parts to the RM role: one
is the technical part --- creating tags, signing tarballs, sending
release announcement emails --- but the other is the community part ---
perhaps most obviously sending the periodical "Shall we roll a release
next week?" mails.