proposed-migration blocks for milestones

[Steve Langasek]

Hi Scott,

On Thu, Sep 05, 2013 at 06:25:28PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > Finally, there's one other point that I think we should discuss regarding
> > the opt-in freezes.  The current model for opt-in milestones is that we
> > freeze all those packages which are used by any of the opting flavors.  I
> > don't think this is in the spirit of the original compromise that was
> > proposed, however - particularly since two of the flavors that have been
> > doing opt-in milestones, UbuntuKylin and Edubuntu, are deriving directly
> > from the ubuntu desktop seed, with the result that for beta-1, all of Ubuntu
> > Desktop was frozen.  I don't think this is a reasonable outcome; the Ubuntu
> > Desktop team are explicitly *not* participating in these milestones in
> > order to maintain development velocity, and it's not fair to them to have
> > flavors that are "downstream" of them imposing a freeze on their work.

> > I think it's fine for Edubuntu and UbuntuKylin to participate in the opt-in
> > milestones, but we shouldn't freeze the Ubuntu Desktop packages for this.
> > They can choose to freeze the packages that are part of their overlay, but
> > where the Ubuntu Desktop packages are concerned, there should be a level of
> > trust in the CI methodologies that we have put in place for the Ubuntu
> > Desktop itself, instead of freezes whose effect is to reduce alignment
> > between Ubuntu and the other flavors.

> I guess a lot of that revolves around the question of how people feel about 
> releasing install media with obsolete packages on them.  We've gotten more 
> relaxed about that in recent cycles without any problems I'm aware of.  

> OTOH, part of the reason for uploading to proposed was to allow teams to
> continue to work through these things.  I don't understand how two days of
> not migrating has any significant affect on development velocity.  AIUI,
> the benefit for non-participating flavors is that developers don't need to
> stop their normal work and test/fix issues associated with the milestone. 
> The larger effect on velocity comes from what people spend their time on
> and not on if a package migrates from -proposed or not.

Having packages frozen in -proposed still negatively impacts velocity,
because nothing in -proposed is being used by the developers and other
users; a full development iteration means the changes need to reach the
release pocket, where they can be used by developers and other users,
incorporated into images, and subjected to additional image-based
integration testing.

It certainly helps to be able to upload to -proposed instead of not being
able to upload at all, but the milestone freeze does still slow down
development.  And in this context, I think it's an unnecessary slowdown.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
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