Re: Releasing in September

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 6:18 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> writes:
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 5:19 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> >> I do not think commitfest length is the problem (though surely it's not
> >> working as intended). What happened with 9.5 is we forked the 9.6
>
> > I agree that it's not the same problem. I do believe that it is *a*
> problem
> > though, and a fairly significant one too. Because there's *never* any
> > downtime from CF mode, regardless of where in the cycle we are.
>
> True, we've been failing badly on the intention that there would be time
> off from CF mode, and I'd like to see a fix for that. I do not think it's
> directly related to the can't-get-a-release-out problem.
>

In a way you could say they are two symptoms of the same underlying
problem, being that we've partially lost control over our development and
release schedule.

> I'm not really sure why we've allowed CFs to drift on, though. Can't we
> just arbitrarily decree them closed on the last day of the month? And
> push unfinished work to the next one? Admittedly, this probably doesn't
> work for the last CF of a release cycle, but that one's always been a
> special case.
>

That's pretty much what I suggested :)

Except that we need to do it for the last one as well. With the only
exception that the last one might be a bit longer. But the fact is that the
recent of CFs *and* releases, we've taken the approach of closing the CF
when everything in it is done or explicitly reviewed-and-bumped, and tried
really really hard not to bump things because nobody had time to look at
them. That's what I'm suggesting we change, and actually just cut them.
Yes, one of the reasons for the CFs was to allow people a fair chance to
get reviewed.But given that there isn't actually a deadline in practice
doesn't help with that.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/