Thanks for this analysis, Dyre. I agree that we should not create extra
release steps this late in the process.
I agree that in the future, it would be great to garner more user
feedback on vetted beta distributions. I recommend that we look outside
the Derby community for examples of how other open source projects
gather this feedback.
In general, the scope of release testing seems to be narrowing. We seem
to be on a downward trajectory in terms of the buddy testing which we
are seeing on our releases. Here are the buddy testing pages from the
past several releases:
10.2: http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/TenTwoBuddyTesting
10.3: http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/TenThreeBuddyTesting
10.4: http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/TenFourBuddyTesting
Thanks,
-Rick
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In another email I have asked the community to vote on the latest 10.4
release candidate. I realize that some people have expressed concern
that this will not let the new release be adequately exposed to the user
community, and I think that this is a valid point. But I would like to
finish this release following the existing release process. I'm very
uncomfortable with the idea of adding new steps at this stage,
especially if those steps will increase the time it takes to get the
release out.
For future releases, I think it would be good to have a discussion about
how the release process can be changed to more actively engage the user
community while at the same time adhering to the Apache
rules/guidelines.
One possible solution could be to create (with a vote) a formal beta
release that users can test, and then create (with a vote) a proper
release based on feedback from from users.
The main challenge that I see with this approach is that, based on past
experience, the time between the beta and the formal release must be
rather long, since it takes time before the user community starts using
any new release. Add to that the time needed to address the issues
discovered while vetting the beta, and you get an (IMO) very long
release cycle. But maybe there are ways around this?
