[GHC DevOps Group] New release process

[Boespflug, Mathieu]

Hi Manuel,

whoa 6.4... throwback from the past! ;)

The main point of more frequent releases is to get new features in the
hand of users faster. This in turn leads to a more reliable process,
because there is less pressure to integrate features late in the
release cycle.

If I understand the proposed release calendar, the lifecycle of a new
feature is:

* Get a Diff reviewed and merged into master.
* Merge needs to happen 3-4 months (according to the dates you
mention) before the next release.
* If the merge happens immediately after the release branch is cut,
then the feature technically has to wait out up to 10 months (if on a
6 month release cycle) before making it into a release.

Am I understanding this right?

It would be nice to have a fleshed out branching model on a wiki page.


On 23 October 2017 at 07:49, Manuel M T Chakravarty
<manuel.chakravarty at tweag.io> wrote:
> One of the stated goals of our effort is to move to calendar-based 6-monthly
> releases of GHC. To this end, I had a conversation with Ben a while ago,
> where discussed the following schedule for v6.4 & v6.6:
>
>   6.4 release planned for Feb
>   - Branch in Nov
>
>   6.6 release ought to then be in Aug
>   - Branch in May
>
>   Pre-release schedule
>   - On cutting the branch, alpha release
>   - Then, a beta every two weeks until 4 weeks before the targeted release
> date
>   - RC1 four weeks before the targeted release date
>   - RC2 two weeks before the targeted release date
>
> For this to be realistic, we do need to have the automatic release artefact
> building in place by the time of cutting the v6.4 branch. This doesn’t leave
> us much time to get this up and running.
>
> Ben, this also requires us to settle
>
>   https://github.com/snowleopard/hadrian/issues/440
>
> soon.
>
> We need to discuss a policy of what can go into the release branch after it
> has been cut. IMHO, it cannot be major features, but only small changes and
> fixes until RC1. Then, only fixes.
>
> What do you all think?
>
> Cheers,
> Manuel
>
>
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