The description below is pretty much on the mark. I try to get a release
out the door every 4 to 6 weeks. The current release process is informal,
but consistent. An announcement will be made a few days ahead of time on
ethereal-dev, so that developers can let me know if the release needs to
be postponed, and in some cases so that committers know to hold off on
checking in unstable code. During the release I go through a checklist
that includes a "make distcheck", interactive testing on Windows, Linux,
and Solaris, and scripted runs on Linux.
Outside of the release cycle a script constantly runs on a Solaris/SPARC
machine that runs distcheck tests, runs tethereal against a capture file
collection, and feeds the output of randpkt to tethereal. I would very
much like to expand this to more architectures, integrating with something
like Tinderbox.
It's probably time to formalize the release process a bit more. We could
create a new branch for each release, as others have suggested. This
would let us test the code more extensively before letting it loose on the
world. At our current release rate, this would mean about 8 to 10 new
branches each year. Is this too much?
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Ronnie Sahlberg wrote:
> There is no specific date when releases are made. There is no release
> schedule.
>
> I dont know how or why or when releases are made, i belive they are
> spontaneous.
> Based on observation I would say that releases are triggered by either
> Gerald spontaneously mailing the
> mailing list saying something like "Its been a while since the last release
> now. I think I am going to do a new one on Sunday.
> Everyone, get all your pending changes in or tell me and I will hold it
> off".
> An alternative way a release might be triggered (also based on observation)
> is that someone, anyone, mails any of the lists
> stating "Hey list, can someone do a new release soon so I can start using
> new features x,y,z?" This then often triggers Gerald
> to respond "Ok, you are right. Ill try to do a new release on Wednesday next
> week."
>
> Thus there is no date when releases are planned. Since releases are never
> planned they happen spontaneously.
>
> Observation suggests that a new release is done approximately once every 4-6
> weeks or so.
> Slightly less frequently during the southern winter.
>
>
> When Gerald decides it is time for a new release in a couple of days time/a
> weeks time he sends a post to the developer mailing
> list stating "I will try to do a new release in the beginning of next
> week".
> This tells the others of us that a new release is due sometime around Monday
> next week.
> There is no "code freeze" period never has been and never will be one.
>
>
> I belive, but am not sure since I am not Gerald, that when it is time for a
> new release,
> Gerald just does a complete CVS checkout of whatever is the current code and
> calls whatever is checked out the new release.
> That is what i would do.
>
>
> This is background and may not be relevant.
>
>
> Suggestion:
> Please keep track of when Gerald posts his next mail to the developer list
> stating that "in x days there might be a new release"
> then do a cvs checkout of ethereal and compile and test.
> Then every day until the new release is out, just do a cvs update and test
> that compiling ethereal works.
> If you find that there are problems compiling ethereal just a day before
> Gerald said he was gonna do a cvs checkout and release that as x.y.z
> then you just have to mail the developer list saying : "Hey guys, can you
> hold off the release a day or so until I have fixed the problem with
> compiling ethereal on platform W"
>
>
>
>
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