1.11 release process (was: [PULL] -next branch for 1.11)

[Peter Hutterer]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 09:14:26PM -0800, Keith Packard wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2011 13:34:54 +1000, Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> 
> > A number of fixes I've had lingering in my next branch.
> 
> I was about to send out a message offering to run the 1.11 release. I'm
> still having fun doing it.
> 
> Concerning the release process, are things going OK? Are there things we
> should change? Shorter? Longer? More release candidates?
> 
> Do we need more formal rules for merging code? The RandR 1.4 server code
> was merged before the protocol and library APIs had seen sufficient
> review, but we don't have a formal process for either of those
> modules. Anyone know how to help with that? -- We don't have an official
> protocol tree maintainer at this point, although Daniel Stone did
> volunteer to put together another proposal for merging those trees
> together, and if that happened, maybe we could convince him to run a
> couple of cycles as release manager.
> 
> Aside from that, here's my thoughts on the 1.11 release schedule;
> suggestions for changes are welcome. I like to avoid major holidays and
> to align with OS releases where convenient.
> 
> Merge window closes:       2011-05-27
> Non-critical bug deadline: 2011-07-29
> 1.11 Release:              2011-08-19
> 
> (this is just mirroring the 1.10 schedule, adjusting so that these dates
> all line up on a Friday)
> 
> That gives us three months to get new stuff merged; I hope to be
> finished with RandR 1.4 long before that...

There were a few times during the last cycle where patches didn't get merged
but for no apparent reason. A simple email to the list stating something
like "I'm unavailable for this week and won't be merging patches" would be
enough to know what's going on.

Cheers,
  Peter