Hello all, At UDS I had some "hallway discussions" about why we freeze for Alphas and Betas, and the fact that I think it is time to drop this practice and rather focus on making Ubuntu good quality each day. Sadly, there was no session on this, thus this email to this list for discussion.
I think it is time drop our "Freeze" practices for the alphas and betas. Here is my reasoning: 1. We are developing tools that allow us to efficiently use -proposed in a way that will ensure we will not have partially built or incompatible components in the release pocket ... ever. Including days we release Alphas and Betas: These blueprints tools to ensure that Ubuntu is not uninstallable or have other problems due to partially built components and such: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-p-upload-intermediary https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/other-q-freeze-use-of-proposed I have been assured that the tools necessary to automate the work of moving components correctly from -proposed to the release will be ready before Alpha 2. 2. We are investing heavily in the daily quality of Ubuntu. For example ... We run the same automated tests on an alpha as we run on a daily: https://jenkins.qa.ubuntu.com/view/Quantal/view/ISO%20Testing%20Dashboard/ We tend to archive issues each day: http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/testing/quantal_probs.html We ran all the manual ISO tests *before* we released Alpha 1, and we have the capability of doing this at will: http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/221/builds In short, freezing the archive before an alpha or beta should not actually be contributing to either ensuring the installability of Ubuntu images or ensuring the quality of these images. This implies, therefore, that all the work around freezing, and all the productivity lost during a freeze, actually subtracts from the quality of Ubuntu by reducing our overall velocity for both features and bug fixes, since every day the image is good quality, and Alpha or Beta should be just that day's image tagged appropriately. AIUI, A1 was delivered in such a manner, though without the tooling to ensure that moving from -proposed to the release pocket was efficient and automated. Cheers, Rick -- ubuntu-devel mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
