Proposed IcedTea6-1.5 Release

[Lillian Angel]

Andrew Haley wrote:
> Andrew John Hughes wrote:
>   
>> 2009/5/19 Andrew Haley <aph at redhat.com>:
>>     
>>> Lillian Angel wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Lillian Angel wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> Lillian Angel wrote:
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I would like to have a release in the new future, which includes the
>>>>>> new b16 update and several important improvements to the plugin.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any objections or suggestions?
>>>>>>             
>>>>> There is still quite a bit of work to be done for the upcoming 1.5
>>>>> release, but I have cloned the main repo:
>>>>> http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/release/icedtea6-1.5/
>>>>>
>>>>> It has not been tagged yet, but continue to commit to the main repo
>>>>> and I will update the 1.5 one when we are ready to go.
>>>>>           
>>>> I have removed this release branch from the server. Too much effort was
>>>> being duplicated. Since this is a major release, all release work will
>>>> be based on the main repo using the rc style of tagging. In the case of
>>>> having a minor release, a separate branch will be created.
>>>>
>>>> There is no "freeze" policy. Once everyone agrees that a release
>>>> candidate is golden, it will be the final release.
>>>>
>>>> Does this work for everyone? I am open to suggestions.
>>>>         
>>> I think we should do this in the same way that is used for many other
>>> free software projects:
>>>
>>> 1.  Pick a branch point on the trunk.  Now seems like a good time.
>>> Make a branch from that branch point.
>>>
>>> 2.  Test that release branch.  Make corrections where needed.
>>>
>>> 3.  Make the release from the release branch.
>>>
>>> There's no advantage to releasing directly from the trunk.
>>>
>>> If it just so happens that there is no difference between the release
>>> branch and the trunk at the time of release, that's fine.
>>>       
>> I agree.  With creating the release directly from trunk, either the
>> tree has to be frozen during the release period or there is a risk of
>> commits being made that will destabilise the pending release.  A
>> branch that is identical to trunk should be largely zero cost if
>> created on the remote server (see Mark's email:
>> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/distro-pkg-dev/2009-February/004877.html).
>>
>> It also means that security fixes can be made available immediately
>> for the last release.  I did this with IcedTea7 1.9.1 for the last
>> batch of updates.  We still don't have a release of IcedTea6 that
>> includes these fixes until 1.5 becomes available.
>>     
>
> In my mind, the main advantage to releasing from a branch in the
> normal way it that it's much easier for other people to look at the
> repository and understand what is going on.  It's a more open process
> that makes it much easier for people to come into this community and
> participate.
>
> Having spent a lot of time doing software archaeology on very old
> projects, I really appreciate transparency and repeatability of
> processes.


Ok great. That sounds fine.

I will create the branch from the rc2 tag.


Cheers,
Lillian