Lucid Release Schedule

[Andrew SB]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Robbie Williamson <robbie at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-11-01 at 22:19 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 9:29 PM, Robbie Williamson <robbie at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> > You are absolutely correct :), and I've tried to correct these errors.
>> > Please review and let me know if things are better.
>>
>> Thanks Robbie - that looks better from a documentation team point of view.
>>
>> A couple of quick minor comments on a quick read of the schedule:
>>
>> 1. I'd say that the artwork deadlines are wrong. Currently the final
>> artwork deadline comes after the DocumentationStringFreeze, which
>> means that the desktop could in theory change at a time when it isn't
>> possible to update screenshots. That isn't a problem for the
>> documentation team at the moment, because we don't use screenshots in
>> the desktop documentation. Really artwork is covered by the current
>> definition of UserInterfaceFreeze
>> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserInterfaceFreeze) so it would probably be
>> helpful to get this clarified. I think it was intentional that artwork
>> be covered by the UI Freeze
>> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperReleaseProcess).
>
> To be honest, I questioned the need for these deadlines in the Karmic
> cycle at all.  Until Karmic, there was no definition of these
> terms...just words in the schedule, so I tried to define them as best as
> I could :/.  After reading the definition of UserInterfaceFreeze
> (again), I agree it needs to be clarified. I went to the Ubuntu Artwork
> page [1], and I believe these deadlines are for artwork that is packaged
> and made available as *Community-maintained* software (i.e. in
> universe). I've updated the definitions to make this clearer
> (hopefully), and de-emphasized the drops (i.e., moved them to the
> left-most column) since they aren't as critical to the release schedule
> as the deadlines & freezes, IMO.
>
> [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork
>

I've also wondered about the usefulness of these deadlines. They've
felt very undefined in the past, especially the Artwork Deadline. That
aside, I can certainly tell you that the community artwork team didn't
define the
ArtworkFirstDrop [0],  ArtworkSecondDrop [1], and ArtworkDeadline [2]
schedule. They have existed for quite some time. At the end of the
Jaunty cycle when we created the present selection process for themes
in the "community-themes" package. [3] We choose to use those
pre-existing deadlines in order to mirror the "official" artwork
deadlines.

If we are indeed the only people using those, I would suggest removing
them from the release schedule all together. The official artwork
didn't follow this schedual at all during Karmic. As it stands now, it
simply seems to cause confusion. Just read all the disappointment on
the forums when an "Artwork Drop" passes with no changes to the
official theme.

- Andrew

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtworkFirstDrop
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtworkSecondDrop
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtworkDeadline
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Documentation/CommunityThemes