I agree with this. The release can be difficult at best. And I appreciate you giving me *much* more credit that is due...you did a lot more than just a co-pilot (perhaps I should be scolding you for giving me more credit than is due) ;-)
In any case, this is a great idea, and I would be happy to help co-pilot others in some coming releases. Having 2 is the way to go, and its a great learning experience to be able to learn from your peers, as everyone does things a little differently. Jeff David Blevins wrote: > One thing I've been meaning to hit the list with now that we are > formalizing our release process a bit more.... > > For every release I've done ever (in OpenEJB, Geronimo, or otherwise), > the dynamic I call Pilot and Co-Pilot seems to always come in. You have > the person leading the show, the Pilot (aka "Release Manager") and > someone dedicated to the pilot. The two of them are responsible for > delivering a good release. It's just too much work to do a release > completely alone; too much to remember and too many steps to do. You > usually have someone putting in the hours with you dotting the "i"s and > crossing the "t"s while you are doing the tagging and branching, > building and signing, etc. > > In OpenEJB for many of the releases is was me as pilot and Alan as > co-pilot. For some Alan would be pilot and I would be co-pilot. > > In Geronimo, I seem to remember the releases going like this: > > 1.0-M1: David B. (pilot), Dain (co-pilot) > 1.0-M2: David B. (pilot), Dain (co-pilot) > 1.0-M3: David B. (pilot), Dain (co-pilot) > > Those were all done in the exact same Dunn Brothers coffee shop, > ironically, and took 1-2 weeks each. In M3 we actually tried to do it > at OSCON '04 and I lost Dain to endless meetings and the release just > didn't happen till the second week after when we happened to be back in > MN again. None of those releases could have happened without Dain. > > 1.0-M4: David B. (pilot), David J. (co-pilot) > > This one was a bit TCK release and it was David J. and I up till the wee > hours of the morning the last three days and pushing binaries getting > the last few tck results. I remember I screwed up the installer cause I > built it from the branch and no the tag by mistake. Since David J. was > working with me on it, he was able to figure it out and put out a good > installer right away the next morning when people complained about it > not working quite right. Definitely, that release would not exist > without David J. He carries more than his weight in TCK work in all > releases these days, but this one he did a significant amount of the > polish on the binary work. > > 1.0-M5: Jeff (pilot), David B. (co-pilot) > > Jeff lead the charge with closing up issues, branching, etc., and I > pretty much just did my best to try and figure out what it is I usually > did for releases and communicate that to Jeff. David J. and I did the > pre-final-build TCK testing and managed to get that done just before > OSCON '05. The final run happened on David J's machine "crow" during > OSCON '05. > > 1.0: Matt (pilot), David B. (co-pilot) > > Matt lead the charge. He gets the record for the most endurance > displayed during a release cycle ;). This was the most community driven > release to date namely because many of us in LA then San Diego for a > week. TCK work done by David J. and myself. The > final-final-final-final binaries created, signed and pushed to the > mirrors by Matt with help from me. I'm not a very good co-pilot or I > would have remembered to push the OpenEJB binaries at the same time we > did the Geronimo ones :) > > > Anyway, all releases should be community run and they are getting that > way more and more. But I know from experience doing a release is hard > work and you need a dedicated backup to really do it right. It's also > the only real way to pass the release baton from one person to another: > let them co-pilot a release with you and then let them be pilot on the > next release; or let them be pilot and you be co-pilot. > > The proposal is that I think it would be great if we designated a pilot > and co-pilot for every release cause that's pretty much the way every > release has been done. I've also noticed that the quality of release > seems to be very tied to how closely the pilot and co-pilot work > together (i.e. less is overlooked). > > What do you guys think? > > -David
