brainstorming for UDS-N - Ubuntu the Project

[Bryce Harrington]

On Fri, Oct 01, 2010 at 07:43:39AM -0700, Rick Spencer wrote:
> 1. I would like us to talk about our Freezes and how we treat them. I
> think certain projects are *always* breaking freezes. I would like to
> discuss if we should stop allowing this, or should we change the process
> to accommodate the needs of these teams, or, perhaps all is fine the way
> it is. The recent Font FFE might be an instructive case to consider
> specifically, but there are probably others as well.

One thing I would suggest looking at is if the projects in question are
on mis-aligned release schedules.

Fedora typically releases after Ubuntu, and seems to have a shorter
freeze period than us.  Thus, projects which set their release cadence
to match Fedora's more than Ubuntu's will thus release late into our
freeze, leaving Ubuntu with a difficult choice of breaking freeze and
risking a late addition (and the potential of Ubuntu-specific
regressions we have to fight late into the release), or leaving it out
and being seen by the public as "behind the curve" technically.

Add to this the pressure from our collegues and internal/external
customers who are depending on functionality, hardware-enablement, or
other changes which upstream has put into the new release.  This leaves
us with a tough choice between breaking freeze and risking late bugs,
engaging in messy and time-consuming patch backporting, or disappointing
the collegue/customer.

Bryce