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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."