[OpenSER-Devel] Call for opinion - new rules for the release process

[Bogdan-Andrei Iancu]

Hi,

In the last days, there was an obvious need for more strict rules to 
control the process of preparing new release.

Current rules regarding the releases:

Rules for release cycles:
=========================
    - ~6 months interval between major releases (dates publicly agreed 
on devel list)
    - minor release to cover founded bugs (whatever bug)
    - major bugs triggers minor releases

Rules for commits on SVN (for releases):
========================================
    - major releases (already released) accept only bug fixing commits
    - for new major releases, there is a code freeze with ~ 1 months 
before the release date or otherwise agreed on the devel list (as date)
    - during the freeze, only bug fixes and docs are accepted


Otherwise, there are no rules (of course, only if I missed one - in this 
case, please update the list).




Now, there was some unhappy people because some code (neither minor, 
neither major) was committed into SVN with one day before the freeze. 
Reason were more or less "religious" as no rules was broken or anything 
broken (on the contrary, it was new functionality, a quite needed one).

So, I suggest putting more strict rules to avoid any "religious" reason 
when come to committing new code on SVN.

Some ideas for new rules (resulting from a discussion with Olle 
Johansson from Asterisk):

    - Major commits (new modules, design and architectural changes) no 
sooner then one month before the freeze

    - other commits - any time before the freeze.

    - any major commit must be followed by a detailed description 
(devel+users) mailing list to inform people about the new stuff and to 
give them a chance to have a word about.

    - commits must be correlated with changes in docs (to update docs) 
in term of one week (maximum).

    - major commits (see above definitions) should not be made without a 
prior discussion on the devel+users list.


Please add to this list if you have any other ideas that will spare us 
time with useless discussions.

Thanks and regards,
Bogdan