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Rockbox mail archiveSubject: Release managementRelease management
From: Alex Parker <parker.alex.e_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 09:22:55 +0100 Hi all, With 3.7 just out of the door, I think it would be timely to formalise the process somewhat. I have a number of proposals that I'd value people's opinions on. 1) Release manager. I think we need someone in this role, to keep an eye on what should happen when, send out emails, put us into freeze, prod other people where necessary, do the builds, write release notes, and generally oversee the process. A timeline can be agreed in advance, and then the RM sees that we stick to it. It would also be down to the RM to decide to postpone the release if for any reason it was felt necessary (major instability or the like). I actually think it might be worth having two people in this role - two people can easily liaise whereas it becomes harder with more people, and you never know when unexpected real life might interfere at a critical moment, so having some redundancy would be useful. In terms of who; both Frank Gevaerts and myself have declared ourselves willing - if anyone would like to object or propose other people then please speak up. 2) Release calendar Part of the problem we have with releases is that nobody ever really knows what is happening when. Clearly part of the solution to this is the RM, but I'd also like to have a release calendar. I've started playing with this on Google Calendar, which you can see here (please look at February): http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=budlu5aq22827q4o5vl9oed450%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Paris At the moment this is a calendar attached to my account, but I'd propose to set up a Rockbox account. Who then has write access can be discussed (all committers I'd imagine) but the advantage of this is that people can import the calendar into their own, it can be embedded on the website etc. Any thoughts here? 3) Point releases Not long ago there was an email sent to the list about bug fix releases (e.g. 3.7.1). I strongly feel that we should try to do this where practical. To that end, I propose that a further responsibility of the RM(s) is to prod, poke and otherwise annoy people to backport bug fixes, or indeed to do it themselves if possible. It would also be the RMs responsibility to decide when to do a point release, and to see through the process. 4) Release frequency If we go ahead with the point releases (which I really hope we do), then maybe it would be an idea to slightly relax the major release schedule, to e.g. every 4 months. Thoughts? Anyway, a few things to think about - I'd appreciate people's input and hopefully we can have a more streamlined release process in the future. Alex Received on 2010-10-31 Page template was last modified "Tue Sep 7 00:00:02 2021" The Rockbox Crew -- Privacy Policy |