Might make sense to split the difference and have a loose reactive policy of "consider / discuss a potential release when any of the following are hit":
1. something critical is merged (data loss fix, cluster down fix, etc) 2. there are <M> changes to the branch 3. it's been <N> weeks since the last patch Maybe having triggers at reasonably fat M/N above (30/8?) would be enough to trigger those conversations and keep momentum on releases while respecting both the highly variable delta each change can have as well as our variable resources to commit to release validation across the project as contributors. On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 8:23 AM Jon Haddad <j...@jonhaddad.com> wrote: > Mick's absolutely right. Even if we had been doing more frequent releases, > it's a big risk for us to only have one person able to it in the first > place. > > I also agree with Benedict. I don't think we need to be crazy strict about > windows. As long as we tell folks they may need to import keys, I think > we're much better off than we are now. > > On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 5:08 AM Benedict Elliott Smith < > bened...@apache.org> > wrote: > > > +1 > > > > We need to do something about this, and I don't mind what. It would be > > better if we cut fix releases immediately after a critical fix lands, > much > > as we used to. We've got fairly lazy about producing releases, perhaps > > because many of the full-time contributors now work for organisations > that > > don't really need them. > > > > We should definitely add any willing volunteers to the KEYS file now. I > > don't personally think we need any kind of a strict policy about > modifying > > it in future, except that if our release cadence drops and we have > willing > > volunteers we should do it again. > > > > > > On 17/10/2019, 07:50, "Mick Semb Wever" <m...@apache.org> wrote: > > > > > > > We're still in the position where only four people in the project: > > > Michael, Sylvain, Jake, and Eric; can cut, stage, and propose a > > > release. > > > > > > Our current patch release frequency is lacking. It's been 8 months > > since 3.11.4. > > This is having an impact on users and their faith in the technology. > > > > There is currently only one person in the community that is actively > > making releases. This really doesn't inspire confidence. We really should > > be cutting a patch release every 2 to 6 weeks, if critical fixes apply, > > imho. And I for one would certainly like to be helping out with this > > situation. > > > > If we choose to address this issue, there are two facets to it that > > come to mind: > > 1) This misnomer that committers can't cut and publish releases. > > 2) That we can't make changes to the KEYS file (or that it's too > > painful to do so). > > > > Re (1). I'm not sure where this misunderstanding came from in our > > community. But the ASF policy does not prevent committers from being the > > release manager. By default the only thing in the process a committer > can't > > do is publish the successfully voted upon release from stage to public. > > This is a one-line svn command and the last and very small action in the > > release process at large. A committer can coordinate, cut, stage, > announce, > > and initiate the vote on a release, which is the bulk of the work. And > the > > committer can also do the final publish command if the PMC has voted that > > this is ok in this community. This is all in > > http://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html > > > > > > > Is it time to add more people to our KEYS file? > > > This will have the consequence that debian users will have to > re-add > > it. > > > > > > Re (2), the problem is that changes to the KEYS file mean that debian > > users have to re-import it before pulling new packages. But is that > really > > worse than an 8 month or more for an earlier patch version like ".5" ? > > > > > > > But maybe we can accept a window, from now until the first 4.0 rc, > > > where all committers are free to open a PR to add themselves to the > > > KEYS file? > > > > > > I can think of a number of ways forward on this. > > a) remove the constraint that we can't update the KEYS file, asking > > debian users to be prepared to have to re-import it. > > b) open a one-off window where we get as many PMC and Committers as > > possible to add their gpg key to the KEYS file. > > c) open a regular window each year, eg last quarter, where we > > collect new keys to add from new PMC and Committers, and merge them all > in, > > in one go, at the end of that window. > > > > It would be great to be in a better place than the current situation > > where we have only four keys in the file :-( > > > > regards, > > Mick > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@cassandra.apache.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@cassandra.apache.org > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@cassandra.apache.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@cassandra.apache.org > > > > >
