On Mon, 10 Mar 2003 19:34:07 -0500, Doug Way wrote:
... So, let's assume we go ahead with the current plan for 3.5 (only the two bugfixes unless another major bug comes up, release on April 4th). We can discuss it a bit more, but I'd like to announce this on squeak-dev sometime tomorrow as planned.
Then, I could harvest the two bugfixes and put them in the 3.5alpha update stream. Then, soon after that (maybe a few days), we might as well move 3.5 straight to beta. At that point, we could offer the usual choice in the update stream for whether people want to move to 3.5beta or join the new 3.6alpha update stream.
With 3.6alpha open, even while 3.5beta is still around, we could start harvesting the fixes on sqfixes into 3.6alpha and see some of the faster turnaround and "visibility" that we've been hoping to achieve.
There doesn't seem to be violent disagreement to this basic proposed plan so far :-), but I should probably flesh it out a bit more before announcing it on squeak-dev.
(In some ways this seems like a bit of overkill in terms of process, for a two-fix release. New VMs probably do not need to be built in this case, and perhaps we don't need to bother with the usual press releases. (?) You could make a good argument that this could be more of a patch release, possibly named 3.4.1. But then even such a patch release would still need a testing period to make sure the fixes actually worked and didn't cause further problems. So I guess I don't have a big problem with calling it 3.5.)
Anyway, here's the fleshed out proposed plan. Let me know if the dates and everything else sound reasonable. If it is, I'll announce it tomorrow night on squeak-dev.
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The 3.5 release will be a short release for the purpose of fixing a couple of serious bugs that have cropped up, and (to a lesser extent) to 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, but it will also give us a little bit of time to plan the post-3.5 release.
The two fixes are MetaClassBuilderFix from Andreas Raab which fixes the class builder problem, and reverting a method which caused problems for anyone saving a project containing a .gif or .jpg (which is quite common).
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 mention it 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. Within a week, a 3.6alpha update stream will open up, and we can start moving fixes into it quickly. (We haven't officially decided that the next release will be called 3.6, but for now I'll use that name. 3.6 will have a longer release cycle.)
Craig Latta suggested a "First Fridays" scheme for the final 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, allowing the usual choice when updating.
Friday, March 28 - Create a gamma 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 gamma 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.
Hi Doug and all! (hmmm, I just can't make up my mind of a good general greeting)
Sounds all fine to me.
Perhaps the upcoming announcement on squeak-dev can also explain the main reasons for this short release, namely the planned "turmoil" in 3.6 which makes it important to have a solid 3.5 out there that people can depend on if "the going gets rough". Well, that was my personal motive anyway - are there perhaps other motives? Well, a short easy release is a good start for the Guides of course.
regards, Göran
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