Caimaniacs, We've been requested by several key users to provide a straightforward communication channel for interface changes to the various installers, though especially AI, so that those users, including test teams, can adjust their procedures as needed and keep the train running on time. Experience during the 2009.06 development cycle indicates that the prior suggestion to monitor this list for heads-up notices became a needle-in-a-haystack exercise, hence the request for us to apply some filtering and interpretation (and simple archiving) to assist them.
After examining the problem and available channels, I'm proposing to establish a flag day/heads up page on wikis.sun.com. This would be a single page, organized by build (somewhat in the manner of the ON flag day page[1]), wherein we would collect information on user-visible changes to the installers as they are integrated to the source tree. Why wikis.sun.com? 1. It's available to both the internal and external communities, both of whom have made requests for this sort of information. 2. It offers users the ability to "watch" pages, obtaining "push" notification of updates to this page, which is not offered by the opensolaris.org web site implementation. The future implementation based on XWiki offers a similar watch capability, but this channel needs to be in place now to support the ongoing ramp of test activity based on OpenSolaris builds. I anticipate the following effects on the project developers: 1. The gatekeeper (Clay, at present) would add organization of this page to his duties. This essentially becomes an exercise of demarcating the builds in the page. 2. Individual developers continue to be responsible for creating heads-up/flag day documentation for their integrations, and must now post it to the new wiki page. 3. Individual developers continue to send flag day/heads-up mail to this list, though these can become largely pointers to the wiki page. Questions and comments on this proposal are requested by COB Wednesday, July 29. Dave [1]http://opensolaris.org/os/community/on/flag-days/116-120/
