Hi Igor. Good question. This question gets asked every once-in-a-while.
It's a good opportunity to reflect on this particular piece of the EDP.

The "How to" document [1] describes what we want to see in the review
document.

The intended audience for review documents is the PMC, EMO, project
committers, and the adopter community. I've discussed each of these
audiences in several blog posts [2,3,4]; over time, I've come to believe
that the user community doesn't particularly care (or even know) about
these documents.

The release review document is one bookend of a release. The project
plan is the other bookend. Over time, the pairs of these documents
provide a solid history for the project that is useful when determining
things like maturity of the project, or tracking significant changes.

One might argue that bugzilla is the place for planning. I would argue
that it's a good place for planning, but a terrible means for
disseminating plans and assessing success, learning lessons, etc. The
project plan and release review document are an excellent means of
summarizing (and capturing in time) the plan and results.

Ultimately, it's a part of the open and transparent development process,
providing a concise means of informing the adopter, contributor, and
committer communities about the project and how they can get involved.

Historically, review documents were required as part of a review
presentation. Projects used to have to join a review call to present and
defend their release in front of the community. We stopped doing these
calls a long time ago. I still believe that there is value in presenting
and defending your release (as discussed in the links below).

Pragmatically, these documents help the PMC and EMO ensure that the
project is operating according to the Eclipse Development Process. I
tend to look for evidence of community development, for example, and use
the review as an opportunity to help the project understand the value of
growing the diversity in the project.

I believe that we're making this easier to provide with the new Project
Management Infrastructure [5]. Please feel free to tinker with it and
let me know what you think.

HTH,

Wayne

[1] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Development_Resources/HOWTO/Release_Reviews
[2] http://waynebeaton.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/heavyweight-processes/
[3] http://waynebeaton.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/get-the-band-back-together/
[4]
http://waynebeaton.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/revising-eclipse-development-process-release-reviews/
[5] http://projects.eclipse.org

On 06/18/2012 04:25 PM, Igor Fedorenko wrote:
> I am sorry if this is a question with an obvious answer but who is
> supposed reader audience for the release review documents and what
> "they" expect to find in the docs?
>
> -- 
> Regards,
> Igor
> _______________________________________________
> cross-project-issues-dev mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev
>

-- 
Wayne Beaton
The Eclipse Foundation
Twitter: @waynebeaton
Explore Eclipse Projects <http://www.eclipse.org/projects>
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