Consolidating the various freezes

[Matthew East]

On 17/09/2007, Martin Pitt <martin.pitt at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi Matthew,
>
> Matthew East [2007-09-15 13:59 +0100]:
> > > On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 05:30:40PM +0200, Martin Pitt wrote:
> > > > Documentation might need its own (later) string freeze to allow
> > > > translators to catch up, but that's a different level IMHO.
> >
> > I'm not sure what is meant by a different level. If you mean that we
> > should establish a freeze which is later than the proposed UI freeze,
> > but that it shouldn't be on the ReleaseSchedule page, I don't really
> > agree: a freeze is a freeze.
>
> I meant that I don't see the purpose of freezing the actual distro and
> the documentation UI/strings at the same time. After all, the purpose of
> the distro UI freeze is to provide a fixed target, so that the doc
> team can start updating/writing documentation for that release until
> the doc string freeze is reached (from then on, doc translators have a
> fixed target).
>
> I do think that the DocumentationStringFreeze should be on the
> ReleaseSchedule page. It hasn't been so far, because this concept
> hasn't been in the wiki explicitly so far.

Well, to be precise until about two releases ago the
DocumentationStringFreeze was after the regular string freeze by about
7 days (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BreezyReleaseSchedule). Then there was
a bizarre change and it became 3 weeks *before* it for Dapper and
Edgy. Then in Feisty the two were merged.

You're quite right that the doc team needs a fixed target to update
documentation, and translators need one as well. But what we need to
recognise is that it's not realistic for either group to start work
just after string freeze (for example, 7 days to update documentation
would be seriously tough!). Both groups are going to be continuously
working throughout the release cycle, or at least a substantial
portion of it.

> > I'd quite like to develop the idea that we could have a notification
> > period which begins before the UI freeze, in which significant changes
> > which might affect documentation are reported to the docteam.
>
> Would certainly be nice, but very hard to implement AFAICS. After all,
> we inherit most of the relevant UI from upstreams. Those notifications
> should be sent after the distro UI freeze, of course.

Yes, that's true. But if the notifications can be done after the UI
freeze, then that suggests it is possible :)

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF