The Drive to 1.5

Hopefully this is not inappropriate given that I do not contribute
very much to the actual code. But I do follow and participate in the
process very actively so I am fairly well in tune with what is going
on. It seems like we are drawing closer to the end of the 1.5
development cycle. There is still work to be done for sure, things we
all want to see done. I am not suggesting we are ready to branch,
because we are not.

In the interests of working towards the point when we can branch,
however, I think it would be a good time to start defining what is
left to do. I know that Dan has been doing a good job maintaining a
to-do list for merge tracking in:

http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/notes/merge-tracking.txt

There are definitely still some things to do on that list, but it is
definitely shrinking. I get the sense that there are a lot of
"loose-ends" throughout various aspects of the product that only
different sets of people know much about. I think it would make sense
to establish some kind of master TODO file in trunk where we can start
to record all of the things that need to get done before we branch.
This would accomplish a few things:

1) Increase visibility of what is left to be done. This will help
focus our efforts on what needs to be done. It is summer, which means
people are going on vacations. We don't want something to get missed
because the only person that knows about something is away. Having a
list might also help motivate people that have a couple of spare hours
to knock something off it.

2) It should help with communication and help set our expectations for
the release. As an example, the recent changes that make it easier to
use Serf with Neon has also raised the awareness that we have work to
do in ra_serf. Was someone hoping to tackle all of that work before
1.5? Please do not answer here, it is an example. The point is that
if someone adds that to the TODO list it can open up the topic for
discussion and negotiation, especially if it gets to a point where it
is the only remaining item. Again, this is just an off-the-cuff
example, do not read anything into the specifics.

3) Give us a better idea of when we are going to branch.

I know that historically the project has not maintained a TODO list,
or wanted to have one around. It just seems like this release is
really big and there are these little loose ends all over the place
that need to be documented before they are forgotten. Maybe a lot of
them have been cleaned up already, but a list would help make that
clear as well as allow us to prioritize what is remaining.

Finally, I am not proposing any kind of high ceremony process or
document here. Just a place where people can record things that
either they want to get done themselves or maybe no needs to be done
before we can release. This issue with the fsfs transaction names is
a good a recent example.

-- 
Thanks
Mark Phippard
http://markphip.blogspot.com/
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