squeeze release cycle?

[Russ Allbery-2]

So, there was a long discussion here after Debconf about the merits or
lack thereof of a freeze date at the end of this year for a squeeze
release early next year.  My general feeling of the discussion was that
there was a fair bit of opposition to freezing and releasing so quickly
after lenny, but since that's also my personal opinion, I may be
misreading the discussion.  Either way, where I think we left that
discussion was with a statement that no decision had been made and the
release team and others were going to think about this and provide more
information later.

Since then, I've not seen anything further, and I have seen Ubuntu folks
talking about the Debian squeeze release cycle as if it's a sure thing and
we've already decided.  It's also come up in a few other contexts in
Debian.  However, I don't think we *have* decided, so I'm concerned that
we're giving people incorrect impressions.

What's the status of this decision?

I personally think Debian should standardize on a two-year release cycle,
as previously discussed, with no special exceptions for squeeze, which
means that our next release would be in 2011 and we would be one year
desynchronized from the Ubuntu LTS release.  I read Mark Shuttleworth's
posts here with interest and I understand his motivations, but I don't
believe it's in the best interests of Debian to change the squeeze release
cycle for a plan for which he has essentially no other support outside of
Ubuntu.  If he can get substantial support elsewhere in the free software
community, we can revisit that decision, but in the meantime I think we
should do what's best for Debian, and I don't think a one-year release
cycle is best for Debian.

However, more urgently, I'd like to understand who's making this decision,
if a decision is made, and if not, when it's going to be made so that I
can plan both for the systems I administer and for my packages.

Thanks!

--
Russ Allbery (rra@...)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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[Robbie Williamson-2]

I can't speak for all of Ubuntu, but the only thing I have heard is a
*proposal* to freeze in March.

On Mon, 2009-11-09 at 14:32 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:

> So, there was a long discussion here after Debconf about the merits or
> lack thereof of a freeze date at the end of this year for a squeeze
> release early next year.  My general feeling of the discussion was that
> there was a fair bit of opposition to freezing and releasing so quickly
> after lenny, but since that's also my personal opinion, I may be
> misreading the discussion.  Either way, where I think we left that
> discussion was with a statement that no decision had been made and the
> release team and others were going to think about this and provide more
> information later.
>
> Since then, I've not seen anything further, and I have seen Ubuntu folks
> talking about the Debian squeeze release cycle as if it's a sure thing and
> we've already decided.  It's also come up in a few other contexts in
> Debian.  However, I don't think we *have* decided, so I'm concerned that
> we're giving people incorrect impressions.
>
> What's the status of this decision?
>
> I personally think Debian should standardize on a two-year release cycle,
> as previously discussed, with no special exceptions for squeeze, which
> means that our next release would be in 2011 and we would be one year
> desynchronized from the Ubuntu LTS release.  I read Mark Shuttleworth's
> posts here with interest and I understand his motivations, but I don't
> believe it's in the best interests of Debian to change the squeeze release
> cycle for a plan for which he has essentially no other support outside of
> Ubuntu.  If he can get substantial support elsewhere in the free software
> community, we can revisit that decision, but in the meantime I think we
> should do what's best for Debian, and I don't think a one-year release
> cycle is best for Debian.
>
> However, more urgently, I'd like to understand who's making this decision,
> if a decision is made, and if not, when it's going to be made so that I
> can plan both for the systems I administer and for my packages.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Russ Allbery (rra@...)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
>
>

--
Robbie Williamson <robbie@...>
Ubuntu


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[Andre Felipe Machado-3]

Hello,
There is still a staged proposal that could benefit BOTH entities that still
remains unanswered by Canonical:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/08/msg00273.html

Regards.
Andre Felipe Machado
http://www.techforce.com.br

[Kevin Mark-6]

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 04:50:36PM -0600, Robbie Williamson wrote:
> I can't speak for all of Ubuntu, but the only thing I have heard is a
> *proposal* to freeze in March.
I read[0] that 'lucid lynx' (being LTS) will sync from 'testing' as opposed to
'unstable'.  Does this affect affect Debian's release plans?
-K
http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1934
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[Robbie Williamson-2]

On Mon, 2009-11-09 at 21:19 -0200, Andre Felipe Machado wrote:
> Hello,
> There is still a staged proposal that could benefit BOTH entities that still
> remains unanswered by Canonical:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/08/msg00273.html

Ah, yes...I can answer this.  We are *very* interested in freezing
around a subset of packages.  Specifically, the kernel, gcc, python, X,
openoffice, perl, and java if at all possible.  We've even scheduled a
UDS session for discussing this approach:
http://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-lucid-release-collaboration-with-debian

This session should be audio streamed (hopefully the room will have good
acoustics), and I will personally be in this session and can relay any
questions/concerns received via IRC. If anyone has thoughts on this,
please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

-Robbie

>
> Regards.
> Andre Felipe Machado
> http://www.techforce.com.br



--
Robbie Williamson                      twitter/identi.ca: undacuvabrutha
Ubuntu Foundations & Security Team Manager     robbiew[irc.freenode.net]
http://wiki.ubuntu.com                                 robbie@...

"You can't be lucky all the time, but you can be smart everyday"
 -Mos Def

"Arrogance is thinking you are better than everyone else, while
Confidence is knowing no one else is better than you." -Me ;)
                                     


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[Raphael Hertzog-3]

On Mon, 09 Nov 2009, Russ Allbery wrote:
> So, there was a long discussion here after Debconf about the merits or
> lack thereof of a freeze date at the end of this year for a squeeze
> release early next year.  My general feeling of the discussion was that
> there was a fair bit of opposition to freezing and releasing so quickly
> after lenny, but since that's also my personal opinion, I may be
> misreading the discussion.  Either way, where I think we left that
> discussion was with a statement that no decision had been made and the
> release team and others were going to think about this and provide more
> information later.

Indeed, we lack a clear vision again. madduck's email on -release have
also been unanswered:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2009/10/msg00239.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2009/11/msg00022.html

Luk proposed a new freeze date of march 2010:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/10/msg00002.html

But indeed it's only a proposal at this point. The release team needs
to set a date in stone now.

I'm fine with the freeze in march and it would not be too far
from the Ubuntu freeze in february so that it would still make some sense
wrt cooperation with Ubuntu.

I also agree that we need to confirm the principle of fixed freeze date
but I don't mind if we decide to freeze in fall in general and that we do
it on march just this time.

Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog


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[Manoj Srivastava]

On Mon, Nov 09 2009, Raphael Hertzog wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> So, there was a long discussion here after Debconf about the merits or
>> lack thereof of a freeze date at the end of this year for a squeeze
>> release early next year.  My general feeling of the discussion was that
>> there was a fair bit of opposition to freezing and releasing so quickly
>> after lenny, but since that's also my personal opinion, I may be
>> misreading the discussion.  Either way, where I think we left that
>> discussion was with a statement that no decision had been made and the
>> release team and others were going to think about this and provide more
>> information later.
>
> Indeed, we lack a clear vision again. madduck's email on -release have
> also been unanswered:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2009/10/msg00239.html
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2009/11/msg00022.html
>
> Luk proposed a new freeze date of march 2010:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/10/msg00002.html
>
> But indeed it's only a proposal at this point. The release team needs
> to set a date in stone now.

        Back in the bad old days, we paid a lot of attention to one
 aspect of the release attributes: Quality, as measured by "release
 critical" bugs.  That  gave to nice aphorisms like "release when
 ready", but did not really cater to timeliness of the releases.

        We should take care not to let the pendulum swing too far the
 other way: Where timeliness trumps the quality. We also have release
 goals; which implies that the release team likely to be looking at
 other things than just dates:
  A) Is the current testing release close to being release quality?  It
     does not need to be perfect, but freezing with a large number of
     release critical bugs either makes for a long freeze, or a
     reduction in quality of implementation as we ignore otherwise RC
     bugs.  I recall freeze/release times being linked to RC bug
     thresholds, and while I am not advocating a tight coupling, a total
     de-coupling does not seem advisable either.
  B) Are the current release goals on track to being met? Would a little
     bit of slack time help, as long as it is not too much?

        manoj
--
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Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@...> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>  
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C


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[Raphael Hertzog-3]

On Mon, 09 Nov 2009, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>  critical" bugs.  That  gave to nice aphorisms like "release when
>  ready", but did not really cater to timeliness of the releases.

We are speaking of the freeze date, not the release date.

>  other way: Where timeliness trumps the quality. We also have release
>  goals; which implies that the release team likely to be looking at
>  other things than just dates:

Release goals are not release blockers, I'm sure you know it. And luk is
part of the release team, so he certainly took into account all the
elements that he had.

While it would be nice to have the number of RC bugs go in the right
direction at the time of the freeze, it should not be a pre-requesite.
When we're not in freeze, I mainly care of RC bugs on my packages
or those that affect me as a user. During a freeze, I try to change my
habits. I'm sure the same is true for others.

Thus I believe that we should set a target date and respect it.

Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog


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[Martin Wuertele]

Hi Raphael!

* Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@...> [2009-11-10 00:36]:

> But indeed it's only a proposal at this point. The release team needs
> to set a date in stone now.

If you're talking about the Ubuntu release team that's up to them. If
you talk about the Debian release team then I don't think so. A
proposale is a proposal not a policy.

Yours Martin


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[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:35:45AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Luk proposed a new freeze date of march 2010:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/10/msg00002.html
>
> But indeed it's only a proposal at this point. The release team needs
> to set a date in stone now.

Does it?  Re-reading the mail above I surely agree that it is a freeze
"proposal", but the way I personally assimilated it is something like
"freeze is in March", with the always standing obvious corollary of "but
of course it would be pointless to freeze with 1000 RC bugs".

Sure, if most DDs have just took that mail as a proposal that they can
safely ignore, the release team should probably be more precise, but I
doubt the substance will be anything else than what we have now. (I also
duly notice that the release team has been heavily flamed just after DC9
for not having stated explicitly the word "proposal", so they might have
been tempted to write "proposal" now to avoid flaming ... We're all
humans.)

Cheers.

--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..|  .  |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...........| ..: |.... Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime

[gregor herrmann-3]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:11:08 +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:35:45AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/10/msg00002.html
> > But indeed it's only a proposal at this point. The release team needs
> > to set a date in stone now.
> Does it?  Re-reading the mail above I surely agree that it is a freeze
> "proposal", but the way I personally assimilated it is something like
> "freeze is in March", with the always standing obvious corollary of "but
> of course it would be pointless to freeze with 1000 RC bugs".

FWIW: I also read the announcement as "the current plan is to freeze
in March" and therefor assumed we will freeze in March unless some
major obstacles appear.
 
Cheers,
gregor
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[Raphael Hertzog-3]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Martin Wuertele wrote:
> If you're talking about the Ubuntu release team that's up to them. If
> you talk about the Debian release team then I don't think so. A
> proposale is a proposal not a policy.

I don't get your point. How do you go from a proposed freeze date
to a definitive freeze date if not by letting the RM decide it ?

Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog


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[Raphael Hertzog-3]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> Sure, if most DDs have just took that mail as a proposal that they can
> safely ignore, the release team should probably be more precise, but I
> doubt the substance will be anything else than what we have now. (I also
> duly notice that the release team has been heavily flamed just after DC9
> for not having stated explicitly the word "proposal", so they might have
> been tempted to write "proposal" now to avoid flaming ... We're all
> humans.)

Sure, but they could say: “based on the input we got, we propose to
freeze in march 2010. If no major complaints come up, we'll confirm
this schedule in 2 weeks.”

Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog


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[Luk Claes]

Raphael Hertzog wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
>> Sure, if most DDs have just took that mail as a proposal that they can
>> safely ignore, the release team should probably be more precise, but I
>> doubt the substance will be anything else than what we have now. (I also
>> duly notice that the release team has been heavily flamed just after DC9
>> for not having stated explicitly the word "proposal", so they might have
>> been tempted to write "proposal" now to avoid flaming ... We're all
>> humans.)
>
> Sure, but they could say: “based on the input we got, we propose to
> freeze in march 2010. If no major complaints come up, we'll confirm
> this schedule in 2 weeks.”

If no major things (like a way too high RC bug count) would interfere we
still intend to freeze in March.

So please align your plans with that target and help reducing the
blockers, TIA.

Cheers

Luk


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[Russ Allbery-2]

Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@...> writes:

> Luk proposed a new freeze date of march 2010:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/10/msg00002.html

Ah, this message came in while I was on vacation and I somehow missed it.
Thank you.  This answers my questions.

--
Russ Allbery (rra@...)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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