[Mageia-dev] Release cycles proposals, and discussion

[David Sjölin]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 2:51 PM, Thomas Backlund <tmb at mageia.org> wrote:
> Wolfgang Bornath skrev 13.6.2011 15:20:
>>
>> About the cycles:
>>
>> The 9-months seem to be a compromise - but I start to ask why we need
>> such a fixed statement (which it would be, once published). We need a
>> schedule for each cycle, that's true. Without a schedule we would
>> never finish anything. But how about taking 9 months only as a "nice
>> to meet" target, leaving us the option to set a roadmap after setting
>> the specs of the next release - we could then go for a 8 or 10 months
>> roadmap, depending on the specs.
>>
>
> This is somewhat like what I had in my mind to write too, but you beat me to
> it :)
>
> It could allow us to adapt a little for upstream releases.
> But should we then decide that the limit is +/- 1 month ?
>
> Obviously there will still be people complaining that "you waited 10
> months... if you had extended with ~2 more weeks... "this" or "that"
> package would have been available too... and so on....
>
>
> And something not to forget (this is more related to the specs):
>
> If an estimated upstream release of kde/gnome/... seem to fit our
> schedule it _must_ be in Cauldron before version freeze so we
> actually get some test/qa on it and not try to force it in by
> "hey it's released ~x days before final mageia release so it
>  must be added" attitude that tends to pop up at every freeze.

This point and the one above ("if you had extended...") seems to be
arguments for a fixed time release cycle? With a fixed release cycle
no one would question why we didn't wait for the release of a new
gnome/kde/<any package which someone wants>, since waiting the extra
weeks would go against the release cycle. I'm not sure if that is
enough of an argument against having a looser release cycle but... But
then again, I can see the point of having the possibility to be a bit
flexible.