> -----Original Message----- > From: Nikita Popov [mailto:nikita....@gmail.com] > Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2017 1:49 PM > To: Anatol Belski <a...@php.net> > Cc: Sara Golemon <poll...@php.net>; PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net> > Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [7.2] Timetable > > To clarify, I wasn't referring to our patch release RCs here, I certainly see > the > usefulness of those. What I had in mind is that the current release timeline > for > PHP 7.2 plans one new release (alpha, beta or RC) *every two weeks* starting > June 8th and continuing for 12 releases. This seems excessive and I don't > think > there are many people who are interested in testing a new release every two > weeks. At least after the alpha phase the PHP-7.2 branch should be about as > low-activity as our other release branches (as all features have landed by > this > time), so there will not be a lot of changes between releases two weeks apart. > This fast-paced release cycle is probably also part of the reason why we have > to > do the beta/RC switch early, as it's pretty hard to take a "beta 9" > seriously, it's > just "yet another beta" at that point. > > > I don't think we'd lose much (actually I suspect that reducing the number of > releases will increase willingness to test them) if we used a monthly release > cycle instead (e.g. using 2 alphas, 2 betas and 2 RCs.) > Ah, I understood it in wrong direction then. For the minor pre cycle, probably some release could be omitted, if there's no activity, like we currently do with a security branch. AFAIR there was no case like that with 7.0, but that's also clear why as it was a major change. Probably would be good to hear more impressions from RMs about how it went with other branches. The timeline is anyway just a planning, it could be good that some beta could replace the planned RC, if there are some issues. Depending on impressions others have, probably the process could be indeed slackened a bit, needing an RFC and extension to the release process doc. Maybe it could be enough to have a release monthly, or more frequent if some urgent fixes are to be tested, with the distance of two weeks as minimum.
Not the last factor here is, I can tell, is also that the new RMs have more practice on the actual release process. There are several nuances that are better to be practiced before it comes to GA. Regards Anatol
