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authorJorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) <jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org>2015-04-30 11:12:10 +0000
committerJorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) <jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org>2015-04-30 11:12:10 +0000
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Add meeting logs and catalyst example files from the old project page.
Signed-off-by: Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) <jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org>
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+2008.0 release
+--------------
+
+Tentative schedule (dates may change):
+ Feb. 1 Snapshot of the tree taken
+ Feb. 25 Docs due to GDP from release coordinators
+ Feb. 25 Snapshot frozen for beta
+ Feb. 29 Docs finalized
+ Mar. 3 Beta1 released
+ Mar. 14 Final upload
+ Mar. 17 Release
+
+To make it easier for the release engineering team to collaborate,
+releng lead Chris Gianelloni (wolf31o2) wants all architectures to build
+their releases on public developer machines. This also means that if an
+architecture's release coordinator can't finish the release, anyone else
+can pick up the work and continue.
+
+The releng team plans a few changes to profiles. Moving to multiparent
+profiles will significantly reduce the profiles' maintenance effort and
+code. It may happen for 2008.0; Chris said, "I am not sure that we'll
+have time to do the profile switching, but I'm going to try to come up
+with it. The plan will be to create 'normal' 2008.0 profiles, and I'll
+work on making them multi-parent." Another suggested change to profiles
+is the creation of an all-new multiparent subprofile, optimized for
+Gentoo development. The 'developer' profile would be based on the
+desktop profile with an additional set of FEATURES useful to developers.
+
+Chris also proposed changes to the release process, including when
+profiles are created for future releases. "As soon as we finish up a
+release," he said, "I'd like to go ahead and create the new release
+stuff in the repos." That includes new catalyst spec files in the releng
+repository, a new development profile, and possible changes to the
+handbook. Making this change means work can immediately start instead of
+waiting until the next release cycle, and it's also useful for automated
+builds.
+
+Public beta releases make up a major component of the new plans. Chris
+hopes beta releases will increase community participation as well as the
+quality of the final release. These feature-complete public betas will
+require the earlier development of release materials. To ensure
+sufficient time exists for testers to take advantage of the beta, a
+mandatory 2-week testing period will follow the beta release.
+
+A comprehensive testing checklist will be developed on the gentoo-releng
+mailing list, as will a list of which details of testers' machines and
+environments they should turn in to developers. Since in the past,
+testers often provided insufficient information to releng developers
+because their instructions weren't specific enough, a new form will
+include all of the required questions and details. "Sadly you almost
+want a beta that phones home as to what it was successfully run on,"
+said Tom Gall (tgall). Christian Faulhammer (opfer) suggested using a
+hardware reporting tool such as app-admin/hwreport.
+
+Finally, Chris wants to make himself less of a single point of failure.
+Conversion of the releng repository to SVN and maintenance of a shared
+release checklist there will help, he said, so everyone can make updates
+as they get things done.
+
+A question about security came from Tobias Klausmann (Blackb|rd), who
+asked how to avoid the same problem that hit 2007.1. "Part of the
+problem last time was that Chris was trying to update the snapshot for
+*every* security bug," said x86 release coordinator Andrew Gaffney
+(agaffney), "instead of just the ones that affected the media."
+
+
+Automated builds
+----------------
+
+Branching profiles and specs for the next release early will enable the
+releng team to begin automated and regular internal release builds.
+"They'll check out the SVN for the new release and use the new dev
+profile," Chris said, "so we find problems and fix them year-round
+instead of just during the release cycle."
+
+Making these internal release builds publicly accessible can be done by
+individual architecture teams, but Chris said the releng team won't
+distribute them automatically. This could help people with architectures
+that require hardware support nonexistent in the last release.
+
+"My long-term goal for the automatic builds is for us to be able to use
+them as our initial beta," Chris said. "We pick one that's as close to
+release quality as possible, release it as beta, *then* start the
+release cycle."
+
+
+
+How do we involve the community more?
+-------------------------------------
+
+
+Some of the most popular suggestions--addition of the public beta,
+letting users help with beta testing, and explicitly asking for
+feedback--were already proposed for other goals like improving release
+quality. They may also help involve the community.
+
+Another popular idea was creating a survey to ask users for the top
+features they want in the next release. This might happen with simple
+infrastructure like email or the forums, since Gentoo doesn't yet have
+anything better.
+
+The last idea for getting users involved is to simply do a good job of
+announcing the beta. Gentoo users have many places to get information
+(GMN, forums, website, planet, many mailing lists), so getting news
+about the beta to anywhere more users see it will require wide
+dissemination of the announcement.
+
+In addition to users, the releng team wants to get more developers
+involved. Donnie Berkholz (dberkholz) suggested appealing to their
+motivations for being a developer in the first place by doing things
+like testing their own packages on the LiveCD. And Chris also wants to
+get developers more actively involved rather than just being consumers.
+
+
+Other topics
+------------
+
+Using full-fledged project-management software like dotproject was
+proposed by developer Preston Cody (codeman). Chris said he just used a
+spreadsheet but wanted something more collaborative, so Preston
+suggested Google Docs. For now, the release checklist will live in SVN.
+
+Switching away from the Cafepress store was also brought up. Cafepress
+doesn't produce DVDs, but the releng team wants to encourage LiveDVD use
+because they have so much more content. Chris is researching some
+alternate stores.
+
+Regarding hardware, most architectures have working, hosted development
+machines. The main amd64 dev box, poseidon, could use some faster hard
+drives for the automated builds.
+
+Since constant security vulnerabilities forcibly canceled the 2007.1
+release, improving how the releng team deals with them was a concern.
+The main change will be a closer collaboration between the security team
+and the releng team. "Releng is going to be treated just like an arch,
+with a security liaison and everything," Chris said, "and we'll be added
+to CC just like any other architecture. Before, I just found out about
+stuff when either someone told me or when it hit the arch aliases I was
+on ... neither of which was very good for planning."