precise-proposed now open for uploads all the time

[Colin Watson]

= READ THIS FIRST =

This is an experimental process.  We aren't yet ready for everyone to
use this, but we hope that explaining what's going on will reduce
confusion.  If you're tempted to do anything interesting with this,
please come and talk to the release team on #ubuntu-release so that we
can try to minimise the effects of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

= Summary =

precise-proposed is now open for uploads.  Previously, -proposed was
only open for stable releases and during hard freezes, but we can now
use it during active development as well, and we'll be able to use
q-proposed through the whole lifetime of Q development.  During active
development, uploads to -proposed are automatically accepted and do not
require manual approval by archive administrators.

Eventually, we would like to use this as a staging area for a
substantial fraction of uploads, to try to entirely avoid dependency
breakage in the development release.  At the moment, though, we only
have fairly basic tools for managing -proposed for development releases
[1] [2], there are some problems that can arise if dependency chains
start stacking up there, and uploads need to be moved to precise
by hand; so we aren't yet asking for developers to use it all the
time.

[1] http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/pending-sru.html
[2] http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/testing/precise-proposed_probs.html

= When should I use this? =

You should normally upload to -proposed if one or more of the following
is true:

 * You are uploading a multi-binary package some of whose binaries will
   become uninstallable if builds happen at different times on different
   architectures.  (This is working around some known shortcomings in
   the build toolchain, which we hope will eventually be fixed.)

 * You are uploading a stack of packages which must all land in the
   development release at the same time to avoid causing
   uninstallability.  The unity/nux/compiz stack is a good example of
   this.

 * You need some kind of special testing performed on the packages in
   precise-proposed before promoting them to precise.

In the first case, you can go ahead and upload to precise-proposed
without consultation, and we'll promote your package to precise once
it's built everywhere and is installable.  In the second and third case,
please consult with the release team so that we can make sure it's
worthwhile and appropriate, and so that we know not to promote your
package before you're finished with any testing you need to do.

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]
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