Natty Feature Freeze now in effect; Alpha 3 freeze 2/27 2300 UTC

[Kate Stewart]

Hello Ubuntu developers,

The Feature Freeze is now in effect for Natty.  The focus from here until
release is on fixing bugs and polishing.

If you believe that a new package, a new upstream version of a package, or a
new feature is needed for the release and will not introduce more problems
than it fixes, please follow the Freeze Exception Process by filing bugs and
subscribing ubuntu-release or motu-release as appropriate.

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess

Please also make sure that specs assigned to you for Natty are updated
to their current status (which should be at least Beta Available if
not Deferred, or unless granted a freeze exception).

  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/natty/

Our next testing milestone, Lucid Alpha 3, is scheduled for Thursday,
March 3rd.  Natty Alpha 3 will go into a "soft freeze" for main[1] on 
Feb 27th at 2300UTC.  This means that developers are asked to refrain 
from uploading packages between Tuesday and Thursday which don't 
bring us closer to releasing the alpha, so that these days can be 
used for settling the archive, testing the imags and fixing any 
remaining showstoppers.

The list of bugs targeted for alpha-3 can be found at:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/natty/+bugs?field.milestone=33573

Per the policy[2], this list is used for tracking bugs that are blockers 
for the alpha 3 milestone.  If you know of other bugs that should be 
considered as potential blockers, please target them to the release and 
set the milestone target for those bugs.  If you have questions about 
whether a bug should be considered a blocker, please contact
a member of the release team[3].

And of course, please also consider helping with the bugs already listed
there if you have the time.

Beyond the bugs that are blockers for Alpha 3, we have those bugs that are
listed as release-critical for Lucid as a whole:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/natty/+bugs

If you aren't among the group of people who have milestoned bugs
assigned to you, please consider helping with those release-targeted bugs,
using your best judgment with regard to the alpha freeze when uploading
fixes.

Please also help us to get the archive in a consistent state again for the
alpha, as described on
 
  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/PackageArchive#Consistency

Finally, if you know of new features in Natty that you think should be
highlighted for Alpha 3, please let me or another member of the release 
team know so that they can be added to the technical overview at

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyNarwhal/TechnicalOverview


Thanks, 
Kate Stewart
On behalf of the Ubuntu release team

[1] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-January/000363.html
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RCBugTargetting
[3] https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-release/+members