On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Ben Pfaff <b...@ovn.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:00:22AM -0400, Russell Bryant wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 1:58 PM, Ben Pfaff <b...@ovn.org> wrote: > > > > > This document has two different kinds of text: > > > > > > - The first sections of the document, "Release Strategy" and > "Release > > > Numbering", describe what we've already been doing for most of the > > > history of Open vSwitch. If there is anything surprising in them, > > > then it's because our process has not been transparent enough, > and not > > > because we're making a change. > > > > > > - The final section of the document, "Release Scheduling", is a > proposal > > > for current and future releases. We have not had a regular > release > > > schedule in the past, but it seems important to have one in the > > > future, so this section requires review and feedback from > everyone in > > > the community. > > I think this is a great step forward. Thank you! > > Thanks for the review. > > > One topic that could be added to this document is discussion of how long > > each release branch is maintained. LTS is defined in FAQ.md, but it > could > > be defined in this document now. How an LTS branch is chosen, and the > > maintenance difference between LTS and non-LTS would also be good topics > to > > cover. > > I forgot that the FAQ talked about releases. I'm appending an > incremental that I will fold into this patch. > > It is a good idea to describe LTS releases, but I don't have answers for > the questions you ask. Here are some thoughts about principles we've > considered before: > > * We try to avoid making releases that include disruptive internal > changes LTS, because they are harder to support. > > * It is good to make LTS releases at least every 2 years or so, > because it is useful to distributions and other downstreams, but > not much more often than that, because it is more work to maintain > multiple upstreams. > > * In the past we have maintained a given LTS until we release the > next LTS. This is probably too vague and may not be long enough > in any case. > > Anyone want to suggest what we should do? >
I don't think needs to be very formal. It may not be all the useful to try to lay out a 5-year release schedule based on LTS planning, as it seems incredibly likely that things will change. Being specific about the 6-month cadence is enough commitment for me. :-) Here's some proposed text ... At most two release branches are maintained at any given time: the latest release and the latest release designed as LTS. An LTS release is one that the OVS project has designated as being maintained for a longer period of time. Currently, an LTS release is maintained until the next LTS is chosen. There is not currently a strict guideline on how often a new LTS release is chosen, but so far it has been about every 2 years. That could change based on the current state of OVS development. For example, we do not want to designate a new release as LTS that includes disruptive internal changes, as that may make it harder to support for a longer period of time. Discussion about choosing the next LTS release occurs on the OVS development mailing list. > > Acked-by: Russell Bryant <russ...@ovn.org> > > Thanks. I'm going to let the discussion develop for a while before I > push anything, because I want to see a semblance of consensus on the > schedule. > Of course. I was just registering my formal +1 in the meantime. > --8<--------------------------cut here-------------------------->8-- > > diff --git a/FAQ.md b/FAQ.md > index 063bd70..290e66c 100644 > --- a/FAQ.md > +++ b/FAQ.md > @@ -125,13 +125,16 @@ Releases > ### Q: What does it mean for an Open vSwitch release to be LTS (long-term > support)? > > A: All official releases have been through a comprehensive testing > - process and are suitable for production use. Planned releases will > - occur several times a year. If a significant bug is identified in an > + process and are suitable for production use. Planned releases > + occur twice a year. If a significant bug is identified in an > LTS release, we will provide an updated release that includes the > fix. Releases that are not LTS may not be fixed and may just be > supplanted by the next major release. The current LTS release is > 2.3.x. > > + For more information on the Open vSwitch release process, please > + see [release-process.md]. > + > ### Q: What Linux kernel versions does each Open vSwitch release work > with? > > A: The following table lists the Linux kernel versions against which the > @@ -2140,3 +2143,4 @@ http://openvswitch.org/ > [OPENFLOW-1.1+.md]:OPENFLOW-1.1+.md > [INSTALL.DPDK.md]:INSTALL.DPDK.md > [Tutorial.md]:tutorial/Tutorial.md > +[release-process.md]:Documentation/release-process.md > -- Russell Bryant _______________________________________________ dev mailing list dev@openvswitch.org http://openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/dev