In chatting with Philip and Julian today, we got to pondering which
bits we have left to complete before we branch 1.7.x, and start
cutting pre-releases. The major concerns folks had a couple of months
ago have largely been addressed, and it feels like we're in the mop-up
stage.
We've still got bugs (we'll always have bugs), but I think getting
more testing via the pre-releases is important at this stage, and I
see branching as a step toward cutting pre-releases.
I do not think we need to have trunk in a releasable state before
branching, but I would like to find a way to start doing pre-releases
relatively soon-ish. I suppose we could cut alpha releases directly
from trunk, but that would be a break with precedent, and doesn't
really feel good.
If the branch is not in a releasable state, I'd propose we cut alpha
or beta releases, and release them along with a list of known issues,
similar to what we did for 1.5. This would allow more testing.
Voting rules on the branch could be relaxed up until the first release
candidate, also similar to 1.5, in an effort to get changes on to the
release branch with as little friction as possible.
This feels like something that could happen before the end of the
month, but I'm sure others have insight into what is blocking the
branch, so please speak up.
-Hyrum
Received on 2011-05-06 00:02:51 CEST