Re: [Xen-devel] Xen release cycle revisited

[Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Juergen:

thank you for raising this. As far as I can tell, the switch to the 6-monthly 
release model has had some consequences, some of which were predicted, others 
were not. So, I think we should probably review the decision. 

Key concerns raised:
• Too much work in actively maintaining 4 branches (6 security branches)
• Impact on users (too many releases)
• I think we are definitely incurring higher overheads than with longer cycles
• It is not clear to me whether one of the key benefits – aka vendors getting 
patches into tree more easily – has in fact materialized
• Better release predictability has materialized

Maybe the right approach would be to kick off some kind of survey to gather 
input from different stake-holders and maybe plan 4.11 for June. If there is a 
consensus for a change to say a year cadence, we probably wouldn’t execute this 
until 4.12 anyway. 

Maybe make some minor adjustments for the 4.11 cycle based on this thread, if 
it makes sense to do so.

Regards
Lars

On 14/12/2017, 07:56, "Juergen Gross" <jgross@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

    Hi all,
    
    with 4.10 more or less finished it is time to plan for the next release
    4.11. Since 4.7 we are using a 6 month release cycle [1] targeting to
    release in June and December.
    
    While this worked reasonably well for 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 we had some
    difficulties with 4.10: bad luck with security patch timing shifted the
    4.10 release more towards mid of December. Doing thorough testing of the
    latest security patches and trying to release at least 10 days before
    Christmas seemed to be almost mutually exclusive goals.
    
    So what do we learn from this experience?
    
    1. Should we think about other planned release dates (e.g. May and
       November - would that collide with any holiday season)?
    
    2. Shouldn't we have tried to include the latest security patches in
       4.10, resulting in the need for 4.10.1 at once?
    
    3. Should we let the release slip for almost a month in such a case?
    
    4. Should we try harder to negotiate embargo dates of security issues to
       match the (targeted) release dates?
    
    5. Should we modify the development/hardening periods?
    
    For 4.11 we shouldn't have this problem: while targeted for releasing in
    early June it wouldn't be a nightmare to let it slip into July. 4.12
    however will probably face the same problem again and we should prepare
    for that possibility.
    
    
    Juergen
    
    [1]: https://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2015-10/msg00263.html
    

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