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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: 2.1.1 RELEASE SCHEDULE (proposal)
From:       Richard Moore <rich () ipso-facto ! freeserve ! co ! uk>
Date:       2001-03-02 1:37:39
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Christian A Strømmen [Number1/NumeroUno] wrote:
> > Tuesday morning (GMT) March 20
> > =========================
> > The CVS is tagged KDE_2_1_1_RELEASE, tarballs are released to the packagers
> >
> > The rest of the week is spent testing the tarballs, packaging and writing
> > the announcement and changelog.
> 
> Is this such a good idea?  Why make tarballs for testing?  Couldn't we just
> freeze the cvs for a couple of days (from Monday March 19), and then when we
> feel it's tested enough we send it off to the packagers... ?

In the past we've found this doesn't work too well. Having a tar
ball ensures that everyone has *exactly* the same sources and
that minor patches that cvs works around don't cause trouble. In
addition to this IIRC we've sometimes released packages that
contain a subset of those in the cvs by skipping some directories.

You don't seem to realise that the tar balls *are* what is sent
to the packagers - they work from the pristine source (as the
RPM documentation likes to call it).

> 
> For every release now, the packages have had to be rebuilt, this is
> unnecessary and frustrating work.  Let's try to avoid it this time...

The trouble is that we can't really test the final stage of the
release process (building packages) *without* actually creating
the packages. By doing this in parallel with the final testing
of the sources, we reduce the time between releasing tar balls
and releasing packages, but it's at the expense of having to
rebuild the packages if errors are found higher up the dependency
chain.

The current release process is fairly robust, but could certainly
be faster. IMHO This is the right way round - no one wants a
process which is fairly fast but could be a lot more robust! The
current system has worked well, and I don't think saving a couple
of days is reason to take the risk of changing it

Rich.

> --
> \ Christian A Strømmen /
> \ Number1/NumeroUno @ Undernet - Email: number1@realityx.net /
> \ Web: www.realityx.net - Cell: +47 911 43 948 /
>    Live your life by your dreams,
>      not by the limits of reality...

-- 
     Richard Moore		rich@ipso-facto.freeserve.co.uk
http://developer.kde.org/	rich@kde.org

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