0003-release-timeline.rst

Release timeline

Status

Draft

Context

The technical release process is currently documented in a Confluence page; this is not an attempt to replace or duplicate it. Rather, the BTR group needs to document the timeframe of each release, such as:

• When the master branch should be split into open-release/zebrawood.master.
• When release candidates come out.
• What is the deadline for testing.
• What is the deadline for the release notes to be put up for review.
• etc

The changes to the current process were initially proposed in the discussion forum

Decisions

1. Releases will be made twice a year, once on June 9th, and the other on December 9th.

2. The release timeline will proceed as follows, where "zebrawood" is to be replaced with the upcoming release's actual name:

   Time prior to release day	Event
   8 weeks	open-release/zebrawood.master branched off Release note development starts
   6 weeks	Development milestone 1
   4 weeks	Development milestone 2 Release notes are put up for review
   2 weeks	Development milestone 3
   0 days	open-release/zebrawood.1 is tagged

3. The above timeline will be posted to the forum as a wiki post, with specific dates, as soon as development on the release begins (much like how Ubuntu does it).

Consequences

This will hopefully result in:

• More time for testing, and thus a better-quality release
• Release notes produced in time for release