[Mapserver-dev] Re: [Mapserver-docs] 4.4 release plan

[Kari Geurts]

Hello MapServer Documentation Authors and Developers,

First, thank you Daniel for taking on the title and responsibility of 
“Release Coordinator” and for including the documentation authors in the 
process. I would like to follow the same process with the documentation 
update as was done for the 4.2 code release.

Between now and the November 29^th final code testing I am hoping 
documentation authors can take the time to review their document and 
make the necessary changes so it is compatible with the version 4.4 
code. In addition, please include version number 4.4 in the title of the 
document and if you haven’t already add a history revision section to 
your document.

The documentation CVS will be branched by October 18^th at which time 
authors can commit their updated documents to the 4.4 branch. The MDP 
website and automatic update script will then be changed to reflect the 
4.4 stable version and the main CVS branch will continue to be the 
development version.

Only documents that have been stated by the author to be compatible with version 4.4 will be put on the main MDP webpage. There will be a link to old 
versions from the main page. If you make changes to your 4.2 or older documents you will need to contact me so I can update these manually.

Thank you for your contributions to the MapServer Documentation  Project,

 Kari



Daniel Morissette wrote:

> Hi developers and documentation contributors,
>
> We have started talking about a 4.4 release plan about a week ago but 
> unfortunately didn't get much formal feedback. Most of you seem to 
> silently agree with the plan, and most importantly there were no 
> formal objections, so with this email I would like to officially 
> initiate the 4.4 release process.
>
> First, I have created a new "MapServer Releases" section in the wiki:
> http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?MapServerReleases
> Over time I am hoping that we would better document the release 
> process and include links to the relevant documents in there.
>
> With respect to the 4.4 release, I have added the proposed 4.4 release 
> plan in the wiki at:
> http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleasePlan44
>
> In previous discussions it was agreed that October 17th seemed like a 
> good date for a feature/code freeze. Based on our experience with 
> 4.2.0, we will plan for 3 betas over a 6 weeks period after the code 
> freeze. This would lead us to a final release around end of November:
>
> * Feature/Code? freeze - October 17th
> * 4.4.0-beta1 - October 18-20
> * 4.4.0-beta2 - November 1st
> * 4.4.0-beta3 - November 15th
> * 4.4.0 (final) - November 29th (if beta3 has no critical bugs)
>
> The items (new features or improvements) that are currently worked on 
> are listed in the wiki page above, with the name of the person 
> responsible for each. If you see your name there for some tasks then I 
> would apreciate if you could update the information/status for your 
> tasks. Note that the feature freeze means that our target is to have 
> all tasks listed in the wiki completed by the code freeze date (except 
> perhaps the review/addressing of all critical bugs). Is this a 
> realistic target for everyone?
>
> I have CC'd the mapserver-docs list to keep documentation contributors 
> in the loop. Unfortunately we tend to forget about them too often, and 
> this time I would like to involve them at the beginning of the 
> process. I am hoping that Kari can coordinate with the various 
> document owners to have the docs updated for 4.4.
>
> The next step for me (and other developers) will be to walk through 
> our respective list of open bugs and try to identify all bugs that are 
> critical for 4.4. Those will be marked with the "4.4-release" target 
> milestone. There is also a discussion in another thread on the -dev 
> list about the way to handle bugs, so the way we tag bugs to be 
> addressed in 4.4 may change depending on the outcome of this discussion.
>
> Okay, this is roughly what I propose. If anyone doesn't feel 
> comfortable with that plan then please don't hesitate to speak up, but 
> please do so ASAP so that we can better coordinate with everyone. 
> Comments, suggestions, flames are welcome.
>
> Regards
>
> Daniel



-- 
Kari A. Geurts

Department of Forest Resources
University of Minnesota
1530 Cleveland Ave N.
St. Paul, MN. 55108
Phone: 612-624-3459
Fax: 612-625-5212