2.6 and 2.8 schedules

[Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>]

Hey,
	So, here's a proposed schedule for the next 6 months or so.

	To make things a little easier to understand, here's a couple of
tables:

  + Number of weeks development between each release:

      2.6.x Series     |  2.7.x/2.8.0 Series
     ------------------+--------------------
      2.6.1: 4  weeks  |  2.7.1:   7 weeks
      2.6.2: 8  weeks  |  2.7.2:   4 weeks
      2.6.3: 10 weeks  |  2.7.3:   3 weeks
                       |  2.7.4:   3 weeks
                       |  Beta 1:  2 weeks
                       |  Beta 2:  2 weeks
                       |  RC1:     2 weeks
                       |  2.8.0:   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.

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


	The actual schedule is appended below. Some things to note:

  + There are three scheduled 2.6.x releases, with 2.6.3 happening a few
    weeks before 2.8.0.

  + All the freezes are pushed out slightly towards the final release 
    date, hopefully leaving more time for feature development without 
    compromising stability.

  + The release cycle is actually less than the previous ones, but is 
    actually a "six month cycle" rather than a "round about a six month 
    cycle" :-)

  + The hard string freeze date appears a little late, but we're 
    proposing that from "slushy string freeze" on developers must report
    each new string to gnome-i18n but it doesn't need explicit approval 
    and then from "hard string freeze" each string requires approval, 
    but the default answer is to be "no". Only the most neccessary 
    string changes would be allowed.

    The idea here is to avoid the "string freeze fiasco" we had this 
    time where the string freeze constantly broken. The slushy freeze 
    should raise awareness that developers about the need to slow down 
    the rate of string changes, while at the same time giving 
    translators the information needed to keep up with changes. 
    Hopefully, things would have slowed down sufficiently by hard string
    freeze that there would be very few more string changes and that the
    remaining 4 weeks left before the final release would be enough for 
    translators.

  + The 7 week period at the start of the 2.7.x release cycle is to give
    devlopers some breathing room to do some cool new stuff without 
    having to worry about releasing stuff. Usually we do a unstable 
    release after only a few weeks in order to remind people that things
    are moving, but we're going to experiment with doing it this way 
    this time around.


	Feedback/ideas are very welcome. Unless there are any major
disagreements we'll go ahead and post the schedule on the website in a
few days time.

Cheers,
Mark.


            March 2005
 Wk    Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4  5  6
       7  8  9 10 11 12 13
      14 15 16 17 18 19 20
      21(22)23(24)25 26 27   RELEASE: GNOME 2.6.0 Desktop & Developer Platform
  1   28 29 30 31
      
           April 2004
 Wk   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                   1  2  3
  2    4  5  6  7  8  9 10
  3   11 12 13 14 15 16 17
  4   18(19)20(21)22 23 24   RELEASE: GNOME 2.6.1 Desktop & Developer Platform
  5   25 26 27 28 29 30
      
      
            May 2004
 Wk   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                         1
  6    2  3  4  5  6  7  8
  7    9(10)11(12)13 14 15   RELEASE: GNOME 2.7.1 Development Series Snapshot
  8   16 17 18 19 20 21 22
  9   23 24 25 26 27 28 29
 10   30 31
      
            June 2004
 Wk   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3  4  5
 11    6 (7) 8 (9)10 11 12   RELEASE: GNOME 2.7.2 Development Series Snapshot
 12   13(14)15(16)17 18 19   RELEASE: GNOME 2.6.2 Desktop & Developer Platform
 13   20 21 22 23 24 25 26  
 14   27(28)29(30)           RELEASE: GNOME 2.7.3 Development Series Snapshot [SLUSHY API and ABI FREEZE]
      
            July 2004
 Wk   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                   1  2  3
 15    4  5  6  7  8  9 10
 16   11 12 13 14 15 16 17
 17   18(19)20(21)22 23 24   RELEASE: GNOME 2.7.4 Development Series Snapshot  [HARD FEATURE, MODULE, API and ABI FREEZE]
 18   25 26 27 28 29 30 31                                                     [SLUSHY UI AND STRING FREEZE]
      
           August 2004
 Wk   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 19    1 (2) 3 (4) 5  6  7   RELEASE: GNOME 2.8.0 Beta 1 (2.7.90) [HARD UI FREEZE]
 20    8  9 10 11 12 13 14
 21   15(16)17(18)19 20 21   RELEASE: GNOME 2.8.0 Beta 2 (2.7.91) [HARD STRING FREEZE]
 22   22(23)24(25)26 27 28   RELEASE: GNOME 2.6.3 Desktop & Developer Platform
 23   29(30)31               TARBALLS DUE: 2.8.0 Release Candidate 1 (2.7.92)
      
         September 2004
 Wk   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
               (1) 2  3  4   RELEASE: GNOME 2.8.0 Release Candidate 1 (2.7.92) [HARD CODE FREEZE]
 24    5  6  7  8  9 10 11   
 25   12(13)14(15)16 17 18   RELEASE: GNOME 2.8.0 Desktop & Developer Platform
      19 20 21 22 23 24 25
      26 27 28 29 30