API freeze for 2.2?

[Martin Pool]

Hi,

We're scheduled to do 2.2b4 on the 1st of July (4 weeks from now) and
2.2rc1 on the 23rd of July (3 weeks after that.)  2.2rc1 will be our
feature freeze for 2.2: at that point we will branch off from trunk
and people will only be able to land safe bug fixes into 2.2.  This
aligns 2.2 with Ubuntu Maverick's release schedule (plus a safety
margin), and for everybody else it makes sure we'll get a stable
supported new series out on a regular schedule.

We will do 2.2final as soon after 2.2rc1 as we're comfortable with the
state of the candidate, ideally with zero code changes.

The absolute latest we can put code into Maverick is the 30th of
September <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickReleaseSchedule>, and in
fact changes proposed in late September would be pretty unlikely to
get in.  But we would have basically all of August to do additional
2.2.x bugfix releases off that series.

I was wondering the other day if we should perhaps do an API freeze
before the feature freeze, to give plugin developers a bit more time
before we do 2.2rc1.  For instance, we could say we will not let API
changes in after 2.2b4 at the start of July: any plugins that work
with 2.2b4 will work with 2.2rc1, 2.2.0, and 2.2.x.  Or perhaps this
is unnecessary and it's enough to just make use of the window post rc1
during which we make installers and land changes to Maverick?

(Another, orthogonal proposal: perhaps given that we aim for and
generally achieve zero post-rc changes, perhaps we should skip the rc,
just do a source freeze for 2.2.0, and then do a .1 if problems are
discovered?)

-- 
Martin