Drop Alphas and Betas (was Re: Releasing Alphas and Betas without "freezing")

[Rick Spencer]

(I changed the subject to better represent this branch of the conversation)

This discussion suggests that we don't need to release special alpha
and beta ISOs, but we do need:
1. A cadence of testing
2. A trial run (or 2) of spinning ISOs
3. Development targets

Therefore, I propose we:
 1. Stop with the alphas and betas and win back all of the development effort
 2. *Increase* the cadence of ISO testing to whatever we want or
whatever the community team can manage
 3. Spin a trial ISO near what is not beta time (maybe around current
kernel freeze?)
 4. Spin ISOs for release candidates
 5. Maintain the current Alpha and Beta designations as development
targets only (i.e. don't spin a special image for them).

Cheers, Rick

On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 11:25 PM, Robert Ancell
<robert.ancell at canonical.com> wrote:
> On 16/06/12 02:12, Rick Spencer wrote:
>> In short, freezing the archive before an alpha or beta should not
>> actually be contributing to either ensuring the installability of
>> Ubuntu images or ensuring the quality of these images. This implies,
>> therefore, that all the work around freezing, and all the productivity
>> lost during a freeze, actually subtracts from the quality of Ubuntu by
>> reducing our overall velocity for both features and bug fixes, since
>> every day the image is good quality, and Alpha or Beta should be just
>> that day's image tagged appropriately.
> In particular I find the alpha freeze kills our velocity and I wonder
> how more useful than a daily build the alpha release is (given it's so
> early in the cycle anyway).  I'd support dropping the alpha and pointing
> at the dailies.
>
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