Re: My views on release management

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

Josip Rodin wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 04, 1999 at 10:09:33AM +0100, Richard Braakman wrote:
> >   * Have a pre-freeze of one or two weeks, during which new packages
> > can be held until after the freeze so that they can be installed in
> > the next "unstable".
> 
> I'd suggest something like this:

[snipped]

Wow, a Debian release in three mails :-)

I think I have to explain the technicalities a bit more.  The proposed
pre-freeze is quite different from the "degrees of freeze" we've had
before, since the release will not actually be frozen during it.

>From the viewpoint of a single release such as potato,

During development:
  D1. Packages are installed automatically once a day, except for packages
      that require manual processing.
  D2. New uploads go into potato by default.

During freeze:
  F1. All packages uploaded to potato are held for confirmation.
  F2. Uploads only go into potato if they are specifically targeted for it.

With a pre-freeze I hope to get some of the advantages of F1, without
giving up D1 and especially D2.  As long as D2 holds, potato does not
"age", and minor bugfixes get in unimpeded.

Richard Braakman