[rfc] six-month stable release cycles

[Brian de Alwis]

On 31-Jul-2009, at 10:23 AM, Matthew D. Fuller wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 12:55:01PM +1000 I heard the voice of
> Martin Pool, and lo! it spake thus:
>>
>> If wanted to stick with this scheme but make the development
>> releases have less scary names we could call them 2.90 etc.
>
> I do suggest not doing this sort of numbering, BTW.  If it isn't part
> of the X.Y series, calling it X.Y.$BIGNUM doesn't really dissociate
> it.

FWIW: The Eclipse project avoid numbering issues by calling  
development releases "milestones".  Each formal release consists of a  
milestone period for introducing new functionality (e.g., 3.5M1,  
3.5M2, ...), followed usually a set of release candidates for ironing  
out bugs (3.5RC1, ... 3.5RC4), of which the last is (hopefully)  
promoted as the GA for general availability (R3.5).  Those who want to  
be on the cutting edge (e.g., integrators) run milestone releases,  
those on the bleeding edge run the weeklies, and others run the formal  
releases.  There's more to the process (e.g., large-scale changes  
become increasingly difficult to introduce in later milestones), but  
the distinction in naming might be helpful.

	http://www.eclipse.org/projects/dev_process/development_process.php#6_4_Releases
	http://wiki.eclipse.org/Build_and_Release_Process

Brian.

-- 
"Amusement to an observing mind is study." - Benjamin Disraeli