Re: [RELEASE]: proposal for an update of the AOO 4.0 release schedule

[Jürgen Schmidt <jo...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

based on the current situation and open showstopper I haven't created a
branch for the release yet. But I pan to do so on Wednesday or Thursday.
And my plan is to start building a RC on this branch and provide the RC
at the end of the week. Evaluation and voting will start immediately and
in paralell we should also continue the further preparation work to have
everything in place.

For example improved release notes, announcement, etc.

Some further explanation why not all proposed showstopper can and will
be fixed. Some of the issues are not really showstopper, others require
much more work and can't be fixed easily. I looked on the activity in
general and what is going on in certain areas.

For example issue https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=122312,
I completely agree that this should be fixed asap but on the other hand
I see no activity. And I believe this issues requires more guidance of
what exactly is to do. Somebody who feels responsible to drive it...
Similar to the task with the logo that finally Rob had driven with many
helping hands. Rob did not directly the art work but he summarized and
pushed and tried to convince people to work on it. The same is necessary
with this content. Somebody have to drive it for 4.1 because I don't see
something happen for 4.0.

We try to fix as many as possible potential showstopper issues until
Wednesday. But nobody should be annoyed if her/his showstopper get not
fixed.

And regarding the timing of the release, from my pov it doesn't make
sense to postpone the release if no real showstopper comes up. We will
always find new issues that seems to be important and that should be
fixed in time. We can think of a 4.0.1 with more critical bug fixes and
further languages.

Important is a stable program for the majority of our users.

Juergen

On 6/19/13 10:14 AM, Jürgen Schmidt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I tried to get an overview where we are with our AOO 4.0 release and I
> have thought about an updated release plan. I hope you share my view on
> this updated plan and you will continue to help that we can achieve it.
> 
> First of all I am still thinking that we should release the 4.0 as soon
> as possible and before the majority will take a break and go in summer
> holidays. And with a potential second release later this year in mind I
> believe July is the best time.
> 
> We are a little bit behind my proposed schedule that we can't hold under
> the current circumstances. It's ok, we worked hard, did a lot of
> testing, work on translation and things moved forward. But when I take a
> look on the list of proposed show stoppers and the not yet integrated
> help for the sidebar and the translation, I believe we should adapt our
> release plan to take the current situation and status into account.
> 
> I see the following work items that we have to complete before or in
> parallel to the vote of an RC:
> 
> - sidebar help
> merge the English help file on Pootle and give the translation
> volunteers at least the chance to provide a translation. This is not yet
> done because the lack of time (I am the bottle neck here and maybe other
> volunteers can jin me in the future to work on this).
> The sidebar is the most visible improvement in 4.0 and now where we have
> a help file, it should be translated if possible
> 
> - finish general translation update, means update Pootle with offline
> translated strings on demand, merge the localized strings back from
> Pootle, run gsi consistency check to find potential problems like
> mismatched xml tags. I would like to see some further languages complete
> that are very popular, this includes Danish, Sweidish, German.
> 
> - continue to review, identify the real show stopper issues. We expect
> to come up in the end with a list of 15-20 real show stopper issues
> 
> - prepare the update service
> 
> - prepare release notes (attractive marketing material that can be
> used), with screenshots as many as possible to highlight the features
> and bug fixes
> 
> - logo integration as first step of an ongoing brand refresh -> depends
> on the availability of the logo files
> 
> - RAT scan -> have to be checked
> 
> - document migration path for incompatible API changes, not migrated
> extensions
> 
> 
> 
> Some of these points have to be finished until the first official
> release candidate (RC). Taking all this into account I would like to
> propose the following update:
> 
> - Wednesday June 19th, update Pootle with sidebar help and provide Po
> files for all current languages available on Pootle.
> 
> - Monday July 1th, deadline for the localization, it always takes more
> time to merge it back and fix potential problems
> 
> - Monday July 1th, deadline for logo integration
> 
> - Wednesday/Thursday July 3/4th, provide last snapshot build with all
> available translations, logo if finished etc.
> 
> - create new AOO release branch on Wednesday July 4th after the last
> snapshot
> 
> - continue fixing show stopper issues until Friday July 5th on the new
> created release branch
> 
> - start RC build on Monday July 8th, on new created release branch
> 
> - July 9th, provide RC to the community and start voting on July 11th
> continue to work and improve build independent work items, like release
> notes etc.
> 
> - vote should be finished July 4th
> final preparation, signing, uploading etc. for the release
> 
> - July 16th public release and announcement
> 
> 
> Sorry for the longer email but I hope this make sense and we can all
> agree on this to achieve our goal and make AOO 4.0 available to the public.
> 
> Opinions and discussion should take place on the dev list only please.
> 
> 
> Regards
> 
> Juergen
> 
> PS: I will start to work on the Pootle update.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@openoffice.apache.org