Re: [DISCUSS] Release Deadlines

["Matthias J. Sax" <mj...@apache.org>]

Seems this discussion died, and I would like to restart it.

With 2.7.0 being released, we should consider this change for the 2.8.0
release plan. Given that 2.7.0 was delayed by 6 weeks, I believe that
the proposed changed would help us to ship releases more timely.


-Matthias

On 9/30/20 10:20 PM, Matthias J. Sax wrote:
> I added one week between KIP freeze and feature freeze as my observation
> was that we tend to vote some last minutes KIPs and than rush the
> implementation within one week. Having two weeks to implement last
> minute KIPs should lead the a more stable release branch when we cut it
> after feature freeze, with hopefully fewer last minute critical/blocker
> bugs.
> 
> I also added one more week after code freeze, because this is the period
> we need to just stabilize the release branch. We had many blockers in
> the last releases that delayed the whole process. Thus, accommodating
> one more week seems to be an adjustment to reality. And because we only
> merge blocker fixes, it should not introduce any new risks.
> 
> Let me know if this reasoning make sense. In the end, it's a proposal --
> I am more than happy to consider other ideas. I just wanted to put out
> something concrete, instead of a vague "we should change something"
> statement.
> 
> 
> -Matthias
> 
> 
> On 9/30/20 8:38 PM, Ismael Juma wrote:
>> Thanks for proposing this Matthias. A couple of questions:
>>
>> 1. How did you decide where to increase the time?
>> 2. Do you think there's a risk that having more time won't necessarily
>> help, we will just try to fit more things? I've seen that happen in similar
>> circumstances.
>>
>> Ismael
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 7:29 PM Matthias J. Sax <mj...@apache.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> when we introduced time based releases, we added certain deadlines to
>>> streamline the release process and to make sure we can ship the release
>>> on time. Based on early experience, we adjusted those deadlines and
>>> introduced new deadlines which improved the situation.
>>>
>>> However, we still have the issue that it often takes very long to
>>> stabilize a release branch and the release was delayed by several weeks.
>>>
>>> Thus, I am wondering if we should adjust those deadlines again.
>>> Currently, we have
>>>
>>>  - KIP freeze
>>>  - Feature freeze (+1 week)
>>>  - Code freeze (+2 weeks)
>>>  - Target release date (+2 weeks)
>>>
>>> I would like to propose to extend the deadlines as follows:
>>>
>>>  - KIP freeze
>>>  - Feature freeze (+2 weeks)
>>>  - Code freeze (+2 weeks)
>>>  - Target release date (+3 weeks)
>>>
>>> This would give us 2 more weeks. Note, that we would not put the target
>>> release date 2 week later, but put KIP freeze 2 weeks earlier.
>>>
>>> It does of course not come for free. In particular, having 2 weeks
>>> (instead of 1 week) between feature freeze and code freeze implies a
>>> longer period when PR needs to be double committed. However, from my
>>> personal experience, I don't think that this burden on committers it too
>>> high.
>>>
>>> Looking forward to your feedback.
>>>
>>>
>>> -Matthias
>>>
>>