Release criteria for X11 releases

[Alan Coopersmith]

We seem to be loosening and loosening what it takes to declare
an X11 release shipped, and X11R7.3 seems to have lowered the
bar even further.  I'm sure Eric & Daniel worked hard on this
release, but it could have gone better.

Unfortunately, I don't know of anywhere we recorded the release
criteria, but from what I remember from the 6.x series and the
6.9/7.0 release, the criteria for shipping were at least:

1) Blocker bug list cleared
2) Entire tree or entire set of released modules builds on at
	least one platform (usually Linux/x86), more preferred
	(usually the major BSDs & Solaris)
3) XTS run and passed on at least one platform (usually Linux/x86)
4) Documentation updated and released

For X11R7.3, it appears a incomplete attempt was made at #1 (there's
still several unfixed bugs on the tracker list), and the rest ignored.
Many of the input drivers packaged in the X11R7.3 directory won't build
with the X11R7.3 headers/xserver - they were fixed in git, but not
released as tarballs for those who use the X11R* milestones as a place
to get a consistent set of tarballs.

(Frankly I would have considered the failure to light keyboard LED's
  known about for months before the release as a blocker just to
  save the developers from wasting time on the inevitable flood of bug
  reports, but the release manager seems to not agree.)

Was making our already-delayed release date so important that the
lessened quality of the release was worth it?   Is this good enough
for an X.Org final release or do we want to go back to the higher bars
of our previous release criteria for future releases?

(Wearing my distributor hat, we've decided this one isn't fully cooked
  yet, and we're waiting for Xserver 1.4.1 before inflicting this on our
  users.   I don't know if other distributors feel 7.3 is ready to ship
  or not.)

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering