Open Stack

Hi!

The cycle-trailing release model is designed for OpenStack packaging /
deployment / lifecycle management tools. Since those package / help
deploy OpenStack, they are generally released after the OpenStack
coordinated release.

The rule so far was that such projects should release exactly two weeks
after the coordinated release. Feature integration and validation
testing can take a lot more (or less?) time though (depending on your
team staffing), and there is little value for our ecosystem in such a
short and determined deadline. The release team therefore agreed to
relax the rules. Such cycle-trailing deliverables can be released any
time in the 3 months following the coordinated release. It should be
plenty enough to complete the work, and if the work is not ready by
then, you should probably be focusing on supporting the upcoming release
anyway.

In addition to that, we have a rule that to be included in the upcoming
release, new deliverables need to be added before the milestone-2 of
that release cycle. The idea is to protect packaging / deployment /
lifecycle management tools teams against last-minute additions that
would jeopardize their ability to deliver proper support for the
upcoming release. That rule is very useful for the coordinated release
components, but it is useless for the packaging/deployment tools
themselves though. So we agreed to waive that rule for cycle-trailing
deliverables. Since that work happens downstream from the coordinated
release (and nobody else upstream is depending on it), it's OK for
packaging teams added after milestone-2 to publish deliverables for that
release.

The end result of these changes is that it's OK for the recently-added
OpenStack-Helm and LOCI teams to publish a release of their packaging
recipes for Queens. We encourage them to release as soon as possible,
but as long as it happens before the end of May, it would still be
accepted by the release team as their "Queens" release.

Please contact the release team (on the list or on #openstack-release)
if you have questions about this change.

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)