Release dates/nomenclature

[Allen Winter]

On Monday 27 August 2007 6:54:47 pm Troy Unrau wrote:

> 1) We add another beta into the release cycle pushing the release
> candidates back. This ensures that we actually have a beta with the
> plasma panel and not kicker.

Extra time doesn't ensure anything. 
But, I'm fine with adding another beta.  
The Milestones[1] say that we "estimated" 2 betas.
The Release Schedule[2]  says that "dates are subject to change".

> 2) We add an additional two RC's (for a total of 4 RCs) to ensure that
> the code works, and isn't a festering dung-heap when we release it.

[1] says that the Release Candidate Cycle continues until we fix
all grave bugs.  It also says that we "estimated" 2 RCs.

> 3) We call the Nov 22nd RC3 as the "KDE 4 Technology Platform
> Release". We then take the extra month afforded by the additional RCs
> for documentation, translations, unit tests, artwork and bugfixes ONLY
> (deep freeze).

We should be in deep freeze mode with RC1.
I'd rather see another Beta4.

> 
> The new schedule would look like:
> 
> September 25: 3.94 (KDE 4.0 Beta3)
> October 23: Total Release Freeze
> October 25: 3.96 (KDE 4.0 RC1)
> November 8: 3.97 (KDE 4.0 RC2)
> November 22: 3.98 (KDE 4.0 Technology Platform Release a.k.a. RC3)
> December 6: 3.99 (KDE 4.0 RC4)
> December 20: 4.0.0 tagged, is unannounced except to distros-- 4.0.x
> branched, trunk unfreezes...
> January 17: 4.0.0 announcement and release party
> 

Counter proposal (give or take a day here or there):
September 25: 3.94 (KDE 4.0 Beta3)
October 25: 3.95 (KDE 4.0 Beta4)
November 20: Total Release Freeze
November 22: 3.97 (KDE 4.0 Technology Platform Release a.k.a. RC1)
December 6: 3.98 (KDE 4.0 RC2)
December 20: 4.0.0 tagged, is unannounced except to distros-- 4.0.x
branched, trunk unfreezes...
January 17: 4.0.0 announcement and release party

> If anyone honestly believes that we'll need more than the
> extra two months, we will need to reschedule the release party now
> before flights are booked.

Who can predict?  Real life happens... it just happened to me and
I've been very unproductive for several weeks.

Hey, let's make a list of minimum requirements (a small list) that we
absolutely must have done before tagging 4.0.0.  Here's a start:
 - a functional workspace
 - oxygen style working
 - konqueror working
 - dolphin working
 - sound working
 - kmail working
 - kate working

-Allen