Open Stack

Hey, I thought you guys might be interested in this release countdown info. ;)

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

The R-4 week is our one deadline free week between the lib freezes and Rocky-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-milestones model) or final Rocky releases (for
deliverables following the with-intermediary model) next Thursday, 9th of
August.

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

For deliverables following the cycle-with-milestones 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 9th of August along with the
RC.

The requirements repository is also frozen, until all cycle-with-milestones
deliverables have produced a RC1 and have their stable/rocky branches. If
release critical library or client library releases are needed for Rocky 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-dev 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.

Note that deliverables that are not tagged for release by the appropriate
deadline will be reviewed to see if they are still active enough to stay on the
official project list.

Actions
---------

stable/rocky 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/rocky
  branch has been created for openstack/requirements. Watch for an unfreeze
  announcement from the requirements team for this.

For cycle-with-intermediary deliverables, release liaisons should consider
releasing their latest version, and creating stable/rocky branches from it
ASAP.

For cycle-with-milestones 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.

*Release Cycle Highlights*
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-dev/2017-December/125613.html
Project Team Guide, Cycle-Highlights: https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/release-management.html#cycle-highlights
anne [at] openstack.org/annabelleB 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 Rocky goal completion
information, as explained in:

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


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

PTL self-nomination ends: July 31
PTL election starts: August 1
RC1 deadline: August 9

--
Sean McGinnis (smcginnis)