Open Stack

We are getting close to the end of the cycle, so there are a lot of actions and
deadlines to be aware of over the next few weeks. Please take a look through
and let the release team know if here are any questions or concerns.

Development Focus
-----------------

The R-4 week is our one deadline free week between the Stein-3 milestone and
RC.

Work should be focused on fixing any requirements update issues, critical bugs,
and wrapping up feature work to prepare for the Release Candidate deadline (for
deliverables following the with-rc model) or final Stein releases (for
deliverables following the with-intermediary model) on Thursday, 1st of April.

General Information
-------------------

For deliverables following the cycle-with-rc model, we are now (after the day I
send this) past Feature Freeze. The focus should be on determining and fixing
release-critical bugs. At this stage only bugfixes should be approved for
merging in the master branches: feature work should only be considered if
explicitly granted a Feature Freeze exception by the team PTL (after a public
discussion on the mailing-list).

StringFreeze is now in effect, in order to let the I18N team do the translation
work in good conditions. The StringFreeze is currently soft (allowing
exceptions as long as they are discussed on the mailing-list and deemed worth
the effort). It will become a hard StringFreeze on March 21st along with the
RC1.

The requirements repository is also frozen, until all cycle-with-rc
deliverables have produced a RC1 and have their stable/stein branches. If
release critical library or client library releases are needed for Stein past
the freeze dates, you must request a Feature Freeze Exception (FFE) from the
requirements team before we can do a new release to avoid having something
released in Rocky that is not actually usable. This is done by posting to the
openstack-discuss mailing list with a subject line similar to:

    [$PROJECT][requirements] FFE requested for $PROJECT_LIB

Include justification/reasoning for why a FFE is needed for this lib. If/when
the requirements team OKs the post-freeze update, we can then process a new
release. Including a link to the FFE in the release request is not required,
but would be helpful in making sure we are clear to do a new release.

Actions
---------

stable/stein branches should be created soon for all not-already-branched
libraries. You should expect 2-3 changes to be proposed for each: a .gitreview
update, a reno update (skipped for projects not using reno), and a tox.ini
constraints URL update*. Please review those in priority so that the branch can
be functional ASAP.

* The constraints update patches should not be approved until a stable/stein
  branch has been created for openstack/requirements. Watch for an unfreeze
  announcement from the requirements team for this.

For cycle-with-rc deliverables, release liaisons should wait until R-3 week to
create RC1 (to avoid having an RC2 created quickly after). Review release notes
for any missing information, and start preparing "prelude" release notes as
summaries of the content of the release so that those are merged before the
first release candidate.

Along with the prelude work, it is also a good time to start planning what
highlights you want for your project team in the cycle highlights:

Background on cycle-highlights: http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-discuss/2019-March/003597.html
Project Team Guide, Cycle-Highlights: https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/release-management.html#cycle-highlights
diablo_rojo on IRC is available if you need help selecting or writing your highlights

For release-independent deliverables, release liaisons should check that their
deliverable file includes all the existing releases, so that they can be
properly accounted for in the releases.openstack.org website.

If your team has not done so, remember to file Stein goal completion
information, as explained in:

https://governance.openstack.org/tc/goals/index.html#completing-goals

Upcoming Deadlines & Dates
--------------------------

RC1 deadline: March 21
Final RC deadline: April 1
Final Stein release: April 10

--
Sean McGinnis (smcginnis)