To release Samba 4.0 'as is'

[Jeremy Allison]

On Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 12:12:44PM +0100, Kai Blin wrote:
> On 2011-12-01 11:46, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> 
> > However, it seems clear (but not stated clearly) that those who
> > would be called on to support that code are not
> > willing/able/confident to support the release of the fileserver
> > components at this time.
> 
> Because you're proposing to release something in the middle of their
> release cycle. You're happy to rely on autobuild for sanity checking,
> but at least the last couple of Samba 3.x series releases had more
> vetting before a release. This is significant extra effort, which as
> far as I understand doesn't really make sense at this point of the
> file server release cycle, because that's currently in the "add new
> features" stage.
> 
> > Given that, I'm puzzled, but happy with a AD only release.
> 
> I think this is a clash of development cultures here, hence your
> puzzlement. s4 alphas so far were snapshots right out of master,
> whenever people felt there was a reasonable set of new features or bug
> fixes, while relying on autobuild/selftest to make sure whatever we
> ship actually works. S3 releases come with release candidates, a
> release branch that is forked off prior to the release, and a lot of
> people testing the release branch in additional scenarios. That's why
> the S3 folks have the knee-jerk reaction that you're just dumping a
> grab-bag of features out there. It's not what their releases look
> like, so they're puzzled as well.

+1 on this excellent summation of the issues.

The thing is - to release a real 4.0.0 we need (IMHO) to
move to the 3.x method of release management. The current
"release a snapshot out of master" method can't be the
way a full 4.0.0 release is done.

Once all the new features for 4.0.0 are done we need
to branch off a v4-0-test and v4-0-release branch,
lock down so Karolin is the only person who can
commit, and move to the standard release management
for the final 4.0.0 (no changes without attached
bug report, 2 team member review etc. etc.).

That's the only way to get a quality 4.0.0 release
done.

Jeremy.