Re: 8.5 development schedule

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 1:33 AM, Peter Eisentraut<peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
> Now that 8.4.0 is out the door, development for 8.5devel will be opened any
> day now.  But we haven't discussed the development timeline so far.  The core
> team has several proposals:
>
> CommitFest      Alpha
> Aug. 1          Sept. 1
> Oct. 1          Nov. 1
> Dec. 1          Jan ~~ 5
> Feb. 1          March 4
>
> Release ~ May 2010
>
> This puts us on track for a release at the same time next year, maybe a little
> earlier.
>
> ("Alpha" is a semiformal snapshot release at the end of the commitfest, for
> those who haven't heard yet.  Details later.)
>
> If we want to avoid a commitfest in December, then this:
>
> CommitFest      Alpha
> Sept. 1         Oct. 1
> Nov. 1          Dec. 1
> Jan. 1          Feb 1
> March 1         April 2
>
> Release ~ June 2010
>
> But this has the drawback of waiting an extra month for the first commit fest,
> for no particularly good reason.  (Check the current list, if you are
> curious.)
>
> Or, one more commitfest:
>
> CommitFest      Alpha
> Aug. 1          Sept. 1
> Oct. 1          Nov. 1
> Dec. 1          Jan ~~ 5
> Feb. 1          March 3
> April 3         May 3
>
> Release ~ July 2010
>
> But that gets 8.5 out even later than this year, and past PGCon.
>
> Comments?

Waiting until September for the first CommitFest seems like a really
bad idea. We already have almost 40 patches on the wiki page, and
there are some that haven't been added yet: I suspect we will have
over 50 in another week, and maybe closer to 60. If we wait two
months, we're likely to have 100 patches or more, which will be a
reviewing effort that I don't like to think about. It will also
increase the number of patches that collide in mid-air. So at the
very latest, the first CommitFest should start August 1.

However, if anything, I think if anything we should go the other way
and start the first CommitFest July 15th. That may give people a
little less time than they were expecting to finish up WIP, but I
think it's worth it to give people who have already submitted patches
feedback that much sooner, as well as to maintain reviewer and
committer sanity.

By the way, are going to switch over to the commitfest management tool
I wrote (http://coridan.postgresql.org/)? There's room for
improvement, but it's a solid starting point, and all the comments I
have received so far have been basically positive.

Also by the way, I'd be willing to be a commitfest manager,
co-commitfest manager, or some other supporting role of that type, if
that would be helpful.

...Robert