Open Stack

Hi everyone,

In OpenStack, libraries have to be released with a 
cycle-with-intermediary model, so that (1) they can be released early 
and often, (2) services consuming those libraries can take advantage of 
their new features, and (3) we detect integration bugs early rather than 
late. This works well while libraries see lots of changes, however it is 
a bit heavy-handed for feature-complete, stable libraries: it forces 
those to release multiple times per year even if they have not seen any 
change.

For those, we discussed[1] a number of mechanisms in the past, but at 
the last PTG we came up with the conclusion that those were a bit 
complex and not really addressing the issue. Here is a simpler proposal.

Once libraries are deemed feature-complete and stable, they should 
switch them to an "independent" release model (like all our third-party 
libraries). Those would see releases purely as needed for the occasional 
corner case bugfix. They won't be released early and often, there is no 
new feature to take advantage of, and new integration bugs should be 
very rare.

This transition should be definitive in most cases. In rare cases where 
a library were to need large feature development work again, we'd have 
two options: develop the new feature in a new library depending on the 
stable one, or grant an exception and switch it back to 
cycle-with-intermediary.

If one of your libraries should already be considered feature-complete 
and stable, please contact the release team to transition them to the 
new release model.

Thanks for reading!

[1] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2018-June/131341.html

-- 
The Release Team