[ANN] bzr 2.4.0 has gone gold

[vila]

>>>>> Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> writes:

    > Waiting a few days to get an official release would be fine.

Well, it's of course fine to wait. On the other hand, there is always a
reason to wait but most of them just contradict the time-based release
philosophy ;)

So just a reminder of the rationales (for all of us, I fall in the same
trap on a regular basis):

1 - users cannot use software that is not released,

2 - the longer you wait, the more new bugs you add,

3 - we have a strong record of delivering stable releases,

4 - we fix critical bugs quickly.

All of these rely on us being able to release quickly and regularly.
Past experiences have shown that long delayed releases cause more
problems than regular ones.

My personal golden rule when faced with a choice about
releasing/delaying is: is it time to release ?

And the golden answer is: if it worked and no *new* bugs have been
reported, then just release the new bzr and the already released
plugins.

The main exception to this rule is when we release the first beta of a
new series as it may break plugin compatibility, but even there, points
(1), (2) and (4) above apply: the sooner it's out, the better.

2.4.0 comes after 5 beta releases, I don't expect a lot of breakage
here. Far more exposition, sure, may be some new bugs but not that much
and 2.4.1 is planned for 2011-09-01 anyway.

Time-based-release-manager'ly yours,

           Vincent

P.S.: And yes, I *will* wait for a bit more installers/packages to be
available before doing the official announcement, but don't expect me to
wait *that* long ;) And thanks again to Gordon for the first 2.4.0
installer !!! That required some guts ;)