[ANN] 3.5 release plan

Hannes Hirzel hannes.hirzel.squeaklist at bluewin.ch
Thu Mar 13 10:42:39 UTC 2003


Doug Way <dway at riskmetrics.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello all!
> 
> As a general rule, the Guides would like to keep the community informed 
> about upcoming plans for Squeak releases.
> 
> So with that in mind, here is the release plan for 3.5, which was 
> recently finalized on the SqF list:
> 
> ----------
> 
> The 3.5 release will be a short release for the purpose of fixing a 
> couple of serious bugs that have cropped up.  The idea is that we'd 
> like to have a clean release as a base for everyone to work from, 
> before we begin destabilizing things in 3.6 by pulling out parts of the 
> image into packages.  And to a lesser extent, 3.5 will serve as a 
> simple first-time release for the Guides, from beginning to end.
> 
> The proposed release date is April 4th.  This will give us a chance to 
> get a release out quickly with these important fixes, and it will also 
> give us a little bit of time to plan the 3.6 release.
> 
> The two fixes are the MetaClassBuilderFix from Andreas Raab which fixes 
> the class builder problem, and a fix for saving and loading projects 
> containing .gifs or .jpgs, posted earlier today by Ned Konz.
> 
> There won't be any other fixes accepted for this quick release, unless 
> something comes up of similar severity to the project-saving bug.  
> (Minimum requirements would be:  Several people independently bring it 
> up as a problem, the bug didn't exist in 3.2, and then the guides have 
> to agree that it's worth including.)  The reason we are being strict 
> about this is because of the very short release cycle.
> 
> However, this doesn't mean that the harvesting process started up at 
> http://swiki.gsug.org:8080/SQFIXES/ will come to a standstill.  Next 
> week a 3.6alpha update stream will open up, and we can start moving 
> fixes into it quickly.  3.6 will have a longer, more normal release 
> cycle.
> 
> Because 3.5 is such a short release with few changes, we probably won't 
> require that new VMs be created for 3.5.
> 
> Craig Latta suggested a "First Fridays" scheme for the final 3.5 
> release date, which we will try here.  (Releasing on the first Friday 
> of the month.)  That way we won't sometimes be releasing on a weekend, 
> for example, which can be a problem for some people.
> 
> Dates:
> ----------
> 
> Sometime tomorrow or so - Add the two fixes to the 3.5alpha update 
> stream.
> 
> Monday, March 17 - Move 3.5 to beta, and create a 3.6alpha update 
> stream.  The update stream will include the usual choice to proceed to 
> 3.5beta, or to jump to 3.6alpha.
> 
> Friday, March 28 - Create a 3.5gammaOne candidate image.  Also, have a 
> plan for the 3.6 release ready by this date.  The plan should include a 
> proposed list of major features, and a release date.
> 
> Wednesday, April 2 - If the 3.5gammaOne image is okay, move image to 
> final. Otherwise, create gammaTwo and delay one week. (Not likely with 
> this particular release, but this will be the general rule.)
> 
> Friday, April 4 - Release!  Bundles are uploaded to the ftp site, and 
> squeak.org is updated.
> 
> 
> 
> - Doug Way

Thank you for this detailed release plan!
I like the idea of fast moving which it implies.

Starting on next Monday already we may work with 3.6 alpha
(applying removal scripts etc.) while at the same time
making sure that a stable 3.5 common base image comes
out which will then serve as a kind of "secure back up position".

-- Hannes



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