bzr 2.2 release schedule

[Martin Pool]

It's now just over a month since we released bzr 2.1.0final, and time
to think about the first beta of 2.2, and continuing releases from 2.0
and 2.1.

We want to put 2.2, focusing on improving various aspects of merging
(plus continuing bug/performance/community-driven work), into Ubuntu-M
10.10, so we should aim for a feature freeze in early August, and the
Ubuntu beta freeze which is the last chance for non-emergency bugfixes
will be September.

So working backwards from there, and releasing on Thursdays

  week 30, 29 July - 2.2final
  week 29, 22 July - 2.2rc1
  week 28 (probably a Bazaar sprint in Europe)
  week 26, 1 July - 2.2b4
  week 22, 3 June - 2.2b3
  week 19 (Bazaar sprint, Brussels)
  week 17, 29 April - 2.2b2
  week 12, 25 March - 2.2b1

I think it's fine to vary this depending on how we go (eg inserting
more rcs), as long as:

 * we do release every month
 * trunk stays stable and releasable all the time
 * we don't get into cascading delays or instability by delaying
releases for particular features, or rushing features into a release
 * we get a final stable release before the 10.10 cutoff
 * we have enough clear communication and predictability that other
people can make plans, eg for plugins and packaging

I hope plugin authors will join us in making a stable branch around
the time of rc1.

I think Ian's installer-building scripts will make the actual release
process less of a burden.

We have enough queued-up work in the 2.0 and 2.1 branches that I think
we should release off those branches now too.  In 2.1 it's five weeks
since 2.1.0, and in 2.0 it's eight weeks since 2.0.4.  It may still be
possible to put 2.1.1 into Lucid which would be good.  I propose to
freeze the code for both of those  on Tuesday next week.

We still have some ongoing confusion about code freeze vs release
announcement.  I think we should have three working days span from
code freeze (tarball upload) to announcement, which should be enough
for some packaging but not enough that it will stall.  So if the
tarball is uploaded on a Thursday afternoon, the announcement can be
made the following Wednesday morning.

I'd like to have one rm for the whole cycle.

Any other issues/modifications?
-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>