[[e-mail]: [platform-releng-dev] proposed 3.1 endgame plan]

[Andrew Overholt]

For those not on platform-releng-dev:

----- Forwarded message from Jim des Rivieres <Jim_des_Rivieres(a)ca.ibm.com&gt; -----

From: Jim des Rivieres <Jim_des_Rivieres(a)ca.ibm.com&gt;
To: platform-releng-dev(a)eclipse.org
X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 6.0.2CF1 June 9, 2003
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 19:37:51 -0400
Subject: [platform-releng-dev] proposed 3.1 endgame plan

After a number of conversations today about how to best structure the 3.1 
endgame, here's what we came up with (consider this still a proposal until 
everyone has had a chance to digest and comment).

We make an immediate (May 2) transition to fixing and polishing mode for 
all Eclipse component teams, reflecting the fact that most teams have 
already finished all their feature work for 3.1. The focus becomes the 
current backlog of bugs which needs to be prioritized, and then reduced. 
The few teams with additional feature work need to obtain PMC approval to 
complete that work; all feature work is expected to be done by M7 (May 13) 
as originally scheduled. The point is not to cut off feature work 
entirely, but rather to strike the right balance between last-minute 
feature work and addressing serious bugs, especially if there's already a 
backlog of bugs also need attending to. After M7, all work is on fixing 
serious defects, performance, and on special polish items. The work on 
special polish items is done by RC1 (May 27).

We immediately (May 2) start nightly integration builds from HEAD leading 
up to milestone M7 scheduled for May 13. M7 will also be our release 
candidate RC0. The difference from the nightly builds is that all teams 
are expected to pick up and work with the nightly integration builds. This 
puts a premium on keeping HEAD viable at all time, and requires disciple 
from all committers to ensure that the bug fixes and approved feature work 
they release to HEAD do not destabilize any of these integration builds. 
This is the one area where we've become complacent and dropped our guard 
for some of our recent integration and milestone builds. We will be 
depending on the committers to tame their desire to fix as many serious 
bugs as quickly as possible with the reality that we only have a limited 
amount of time before 3.1 goes out the door, so we need the right fixes to 
the right problems. There will be time for further fixing after M7, so no 
one should feel that M7 is the last chance to get the fix in.

On Tuesday and Wednesday May 10-12, we do a full 2-day all-hands test pass 
to ensure that the new feature in M7 are up to snuff, and to ferret out 
any serious bugs lurking anywhere. This is one more day of testing that we 
usually do for our milestones, and gives us a good chance to shake the 
tree hard to see what falls out. On Thursday May 12 we would fix any bugs 
that would reflect poorly on M7, but likely defer until after M7 fixing 
long-standing problems that had never come to light before. We would put 
together a M7 new and noteworthy as usual describing all the interesting 
features that were added since M6.

After M7 is out the door, we have 2 full weeks of bug fixing, performance, 
and special polish before RC1 (Fri. May 27). RC1 is followed by 2 day test 
pass (May 31-June 1), followed by bug fixing until RC2 2 weeks later (Fri. 
June 10). RC2 is followed by 2 day test pass (June 13-14), followed by bug 
fixing until RC3 exactly 1 week later (Fri. June 17). RC3 is followed by 1 
day test pass (June 20), followed by surgical bug fixing until RC4 (Fri. 
June 24). RC4 will be promoted to 3.1 release by Thursday of the next week 
as scheduled (and exactly 1 year since we shipped 3.0). 

That adds up to a total of 7 days of testing until we're done. Sounds like 
light work, given it's spread over 2 months. And especially when compared 
to the number of bugs that we'll fix between now and then.

A draft endgame plan with all the dates is posted here:
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/eclipse-project-h...

I've spoken with several of the component leads and know right now of only 
2 that have feature work that will not be completed this week. I'll 
contact the rest of you tomorrow to find out if there are any other teams 
in this position.

Please send any comments or suggestions to this list.

---jim
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