[asterisk-dev] Release schedule ?

[Matthew Nicholson]

Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
> 	Ubuntu, which is becoming the most popular Linux desktop distro,
> releases every 6 months. The project management calls for planning
> features which can be delivered in 3-4 months, including bugfixes, and a
> list of features for the next release after that. If the first
> featureset is finished before the 6 months, then they start the highest
> priority of the next releases' featureset. When release time comes, they
> have the next release almost certainly finished, and can even be ahead
> of the game.

Gnome does a similar 6 month cycle, although they have bugfix releases
in between.  In contrast with Ubuntu, Debian does a variant of the "when
it's ready" release cycle.  They are preparing for a release now.
Basically they decide which major features they wanna have, including
the kernel version, then they get those features done, set a release
date, and fix bugs like crazy till there is an acceptable number.

Debian misses release dates all the time.  The next scheduled miss is
next month.

Debian sees the new feature vs bug fix problem as well.  During release
prep they freeze various parts of the system (base utils, tool chain,
kernel and such first), and if necessary the freeze new package uploads
and restrict it to bugfixes only for spans of time.  They are sill in
the process of refining their release cycle in a similar way that we are.

-- 
Matthew Nicholson
Digium