[llvm-dev] [Openmp-dev] [6.0.0 Release] Scheduling the release

[Hans Wennborg via llvm-dev]

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 10:42 PM, Chandler Carruth <chandlerc at gmail.com> wrote:
> FWIW, I don't have really strong objections, but I'm honestly not a fan. The
> reason is mostly that I think it is very late to make the change and likely
> to mean most people are on holiday when the branch occurs. I somewhat
> anticipate significantly more cherrypicks as a consequence. I'd love for
> Apple's releases to by sync'd with the open source ones, but I don't
> understand why one week earlier is so critical. That said, I generally defer
> to those who are working more heavily on the open source releases.

Thanks for your input. I'm not too worried given that the idea is to
start slowly and ramp up testing with RC1 which will happen around the
time it normally would. Let's see how it goes.


> The one thing I have a stronger opinion about is the idea of a "feature
> freeze", stabilization period, or other change. I'm pretty strongly opposed
> to this. One of the things that I most appreciate about the LLVM community
> and process is that the top-of-tree is always open, always active, and
> always kept green.

I agree. Releases should happen on a branch and not obstruct
development on trunk (besides the common courtesy of not landing
majorly disruptive changes righ before the branch as you mentioned
below). I'm not suggesting any changes here.


> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 1:57 PM Hans Wennborg via Openmp-dev
> <openmp-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 9:28 AM, Hans Wennborg <hans at chromium.org> wrote:
>> > Hello everyone,
>> >
>> > It's time to start making plans for the 6.0.0 release.
>> >
>> > Following our regular schedule, the branch would occur about two weeks
>> > into January, on Wednesday 17 January 2018, with the goal of shipping
>> > early March. This is the schedule I would propose.
>> >
>> > However, one large consumer of the branch has asked if we could start
>> > earlier this time, branching on 3 January instead (not moving the ship
>> > date), to get a longer period for stabilization that syncs with their
>> > internal process.
>> >
>> > While I'm hesitant to change the schedule because I think it's
>> > important that it's predictable, there is a benefit of having large
>> > users "in sync" with the upstream release branch, as that means more
>> > people testing the same code.
>> >
>> > I will be out of the office the first weeks of January (and I'm
>> > guessing other members of the community might be too), so while I
>> > could get the branch started on the 3rd, it would be a kind of
>> > "slow-start" of the process, but still allow those who want to start
>> > testing and nominating merges to do so.
>> >
>> > Ultimately, it comes down to what the community prefers. Should we
>> > stick to the regular schedule, or should we do the "slow-start" two
>> > weeks early this time?
>> >
>> > Let me know what you think, especially those of you involved in the
>> > release testing.
>>
>> Since there wasn't really any opposition to the 3 January "slow start"
>> suggestion, let's go with that. I propose the following schedule:
>>
>> 3 January 2018 - Branch point. Those who want can start testing and
>> nominating merges.
>> 17 January 2018 - Release Candidate 1 tag, testing of that starts.
>> 7 February 2018 - Release Candidate 2, things should ideally look
>> pretty good now
>> 21 February 2018 - Final tag. (Typically this slips a bit; just try
>> not to slip into March.)
>>
>> Unless there are any objections, I'll post this on the web page soon.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Hans
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