Quantal Alpha 1 milestone preparation and freeze handling

[Kate Stewart]

Dear Developers,

  It's that time in the cycle to chill the archive again for Alpha 1.

  As a result of the successful pre-release use of -proposed last cycle,
we'd like to take things a step further for Alpha 1 this cycle.  We
don't yet have tools to make scalable use of -proposed for all uploads,
but -proposed is open; so instead of asking developers not to upload
packages to quantal at all during the milestone preparation, as for past
soft freezes, we are instead only asking you to redirect your uploads to
quantal-proposed.

For this experiment, the following rules apply:
  - If a package is needed to fix a bug that would block the 
    milestone, it should still be uploaded to quantal.
  - If a package does not touch any of the images, 
    it can still be uploaded to quantal.
  - All other uploads should be done to quantal-proposed first.  
    In particular, an upload that will increase the count of
    uninstallable packages in main, even temporarily, MUST be 
    done to quantal-proposed instead of to quantal.  
    Affected uploads include:
     - all shared library packages (due to multiarch)
     - any uploads that will leave packages uninstallable on 
       one architecture while the autobuilders catch up 
       (due to out-of-sync Arch: all / Arch: any binary packages)
     - any packages that introduce new versioned Conflicts/Breaks 
       and require coordination between multiple source packages

Auto syncs of packages from Debian Unstable have been stopped until we
release A1.

If you have any questions about where you should upload, please ask on
#ubuntu-release first.

Thank you for your help with this experiment,

Kate Stewart
on behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team.