+1 to the original proposal (quarterly alphas + yearly major cadence) as well as aligning subprojects to the same cadence as a north star. I also think it would make sense to surface the cadence on the cassandra.apache.org website (perhaps on the downloads page?) so that users can understand the release cycle and can plan accordingly.
On Thu, Nov 13, 2025 at 12:51 PM Štefan Miklošovič <[email protected]> wrote: > btw if we release Cassandra quarterly then for subprojects it will be > at most 3 months until whatever lands in the trunk will be available > for integration. That is a way better model than waiting > god-knows-how-long. Being able to integrate into suprojects in 3 > months at max is pretty good, we can follow what is going on in the > trunk more closely, while still having their discretion in releasing > however they see fit. > > I think that, presented like this, will solve a lot of issues I have > mentioned previously. > > On Thu, Nov 13, 2025 at 6:13 PM Josh McKenzie <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > we would be basically releasing "all the time" so I > > would welcome it if other people start to participate in releases as > > well or we make it more manageable > > > > IMO releasing should be almost completely automated and simple outside > running the voting thread. A predictable cadence like this for just the > core project, much less for all subprojects, will force our hand on > automating everything that's not already (including PMC members certifying > releases for their vote). > > > > I plan to focus on that once I have the JDK21 stuff ironed out. > > > > On Thu, Nov 13, 2025, at 11:19 AM, Ekaterina Dimitrova wrote: > > > > I like how Bernardo called it - North star. My proposal - let’s align > the process between the main and the subprojects, and if at the end of a > quarter it doesn’t make sense for a subproject to have a release - bring it > here and agree to skip it. > > > > On Thu, 13 Nov 2025 at 11:03, Štefan Miklošovič <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > That is a reasonable proposal - to at least somehow align subprojects > > with the main Cassandra repository. Cassandra is integrating with e.g. > > Cassandra Analytics and a lot of times Analytics integrates with what > > is happening in core Cassandra. The situation now is that even if the > > feature is in Cassandra's trunk we can not integrate it into Analytics > > (e.g. writing SSTables with a ZSTD compression dictionary from Spark > > jobs, or constraints) because there is actually "nothing to integrate > > with" when Cassandra is not released yet. I think this could speed up > > the delivery of features because for now we just wait till 6.0 is out > > to start to integrate it, basically (or we can integrate it already if > > we run on some concrete commit in trunk but developing against that is > > like being on a quick sand). > > > > On the other hand, I am afraid that quarterly release schedule for > > subprojects might be just "way too often". If there is not a lot of > > traffic in subprojects then sticking to releasing it just for the sake > > of it is not good either. I think there should be some actual > > improvements / fixes etc. we want to release instead of just cutting > > releases left and right "because it's time". > > > > This whole release proposal also puts committers / pmcs under more > > stress / load as we would be basically releasing "all the time" so I > > would welcome it if other people start to participate in releases as > > well or we make it more manageable for the actual number of people > > already actually releasing / verifying. > > > > On Thu, Nov 13, 2025 at 4:39 PM Bernardo Botella > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > I would like to take the opportunity to discuss as well the > possibility of adding the subprojects to this release cadence. I think the > entire Apache Cassandra ecosystem would benefit from that consistent and > predictable release schedules, and not only the main project. > > > > > > I see potential benefits from this for the subprojects other than the > one discussed in this thread: > > > - IMHO, this show consistency and care for our users. > > > - The subprojects are also seen as first class citizens in the Apache > Cassandra ecosystem. > > > > > > I understand that different subprojects are at different stages of > releases, (aka, sidecar is under heavy development. Analytics is still > fighting with some issues to release its 0.2.0 version, etc), that may (or > may not) make them not suitable for the general release cadence that we all > agree upon, but at least, aligning with that should be the North Star for > everyone. > > > > > > Regards, > > > Bernardo > > > > > > > > > > On Nov 13, 2025, at 7:22 AM, Josh McKenzie <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > >> If we decided that Dec 1 is the cutoff, how would that work? > > > > What do you mean? I don't understand the question =/ > > > > > > > > To the question about user confusion, I think Jeremiah covers it. > 6.0-beta1 and 7.0-alpha1 clearly communicate the different scopes and > levels of maturity of each release cycle even were they to be made > available concurrently. > > > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 12, 2025, at 2:35 PM, Patrick McFadin wrote: > > > >> Imagining how this would work. If we decided that Dec 1 is the > cutoff, how would that work? > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > >
