Preliminary Gnome 2.14 Schedule

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

So, it's time to hammer out a schedule for the 2.14 release (and 2.12
point releases) and cover a couple closely related issues.  I've put
together a preliminary schedule, based on moving the 2.11 schedule
forward 6 months (with a slight change).

There are some specific issues I'd like to address:

  - In past releases, we did not specify an exact time when tarballs
were due nor when
    freezes began.  This ended up causing some misunderstandings, cut
down on testing
    time, and made it harder for release-oriented projects (e.g. live
cd, garnome).  So I'd like
    to make this precise.
  - Having feature freeze two weeks after Christmas last year caused
some complaints.  To
    avoid something like that, we need to extend the schedule by a
week, shorten it by at
    least 3 weeks, or do something even more drastic.
  - We didn't list any point releases other than 2.10.1 last time
(though we did get a 2.10.2
    release out--Kjartan just surprised us when he was ready ;-)

The specific solutions I'm proposing are:

  - Tarballs are due by 23:59 UTC on the Monday specified
  - Freezes begin by 23:59 UTC on the Monday specified
  - Extend the schedule by one week to push feature freeze back
  - Put 2.12.1, 2.12.2, and 2.12.3 on the schedule

Some statistics about the proposed calendar, comparisons to previous
release cycles, and the proposed calendar are as follows:

  + Number of weeks development between each release:

      2.12.x Series     |  2.13.x/2.14.0 Series
     ------------------+--------------------
      2.12.1: 4  weeks  |  2.13.1:   7 weeks
      2.12.2: 8  weeks  |  2.13.2:   3 weeks
      2.12.3: 10 weeks  |  2.13.3:   4 weeks
                        |  2.13.4:   3 weeks
                        |  2.13.5:   2 weeks
                        |  Beta 1:   2 weeks
                        |  Beta 2:   2 weeks
                        |  RC1:      2 weeks
                        |  2.10.0:   2 weeks

  + Number of weeks between each freeze compared with other development
    cycles - the numbers in parenthesis are the hard freeze dates where
    there are slushy freezes.

                    | 2.13.x | 2.11.x | 2.9.x  | 2.7.x  | 2.5.x  | 2.3.x
--------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------
API/ABI FREEZE      | 14(19) | 18     | 14(17) | 14(17) | 13     | 18
FEATURE/MOD. FREEZE | 19     | 18     | 17     | 17     | 18     | 18
UI FREEZE           | 17(21) | 16(20) | 17(19) | 17(19) | 18(22) | 26(22)
STRING FREEZE       | 17(23) | 16(22) | 17(21) | 17(21) | 18(22) | 26
CODE FREEZE         | 26     | 25     | 23     | 23     | 26     | 29
FINAL RELEASE       | 27     | 26     | 25     | 25     | 28     | 31

   + Proposed calendar:

 Wk      September 2005
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                   1  2  3
       4 (5) 6 (7) 8  9 10   RELEASE: GNOME 2.12.0
  1   11 12 13 14 15 16 17
  2   18 19 20 21 22 23 24
  3   25 26 27 28 29 30

          October 2005
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                         1
  4    2 (3) 4 (5) 6  7  8   RELEASE: GNOME 2.12.1
  5    9 10 11 12 13 14 15   [GNOME SUMMIT, 8-10]
  6   16 17 18 19 20 21 22
  7   23(24)25(26)27 28 29   RELEASE: GNOME 2.13.1 [new mod. proposal start]
  8   30 31

          November 2005
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3  4  5
  9    6  7  8  9 10 11 12
 10   13(14)15(16)17 18 19   RELEASE: GNOME 2.13.2
 11   20 21 22 23 24 25 26
 12   27(28)29(30)           RELEASE: GNOME 2.12.2

          December 2005
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                   1  2  3
 13    4  5  6  7  8  9 10
 14   11(12)13(14)15 16 17   RELEASE: GNOME 2.13.3
 15   18 19 20 21 22 23 24
 16   25 26 27 28 29 30 31

          January 2006
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 17    1 (2) 3 (4) 5  6  7   RELEASE: GNOME 2.13.4 [String, UI change ann.]
 18    8  9 10 11 12 13 14                         
 19   15(16)17(18)19 20 21   RELEASE: GNOME 2.13.5 [API/feat./mod. freeze]
 20   22 23 24 25 26 27 28
 21   29(30)31               RELEASE: GNOME 2.14.0 Beta 1 [UI Freeze]

          February 2006
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
               (1) 2  3  4
 22    5 (6) 7 (8) 9 10 11   RELEASE: GNOME 2.12.3
 23   12(13)14(15)16 17 18   RELEASE: GNOME 2.14.0 Beta 2 [String freeze]
 24   19 20 21 22 23 24 25
 25   26(27)28

           March 2006
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
               (1) 2  3  4   RELEASE: GNOME 2.14.0 RC 1   
 26    5  6  7  8  9 10 11                              [Hard code freeze]
 27   12(13)14(15)16 17 18   RELEASE: GNOME 2.14.0! [End hard code freeze]
 28   19 20 21 22 23 24 25
 29   26 27 28 29 30 31

           April 2006
      Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                         1
 30    2  3  4  5  6  7  8
 31    9(10)11(12)13 14 15   RELEASE: GNOME 2.14.1
      16 17 18 19 20 21 22
      23 24 25 26 27 28 29
      30    


So...comments?  Complaints?  Issues?  Gossip?