To release Samba 4.0 'as is'

[Karolin Seeger]

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 10:25:25AM +0100, Stefan (metze) Metzmacher wrote:
> >>> 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.
> > 
> > indeed, thanks Kai! :-) 
> >  
> >> 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.
> > 
> > I agree on this. Please note that it takes ~6 month between
> > branching and the final release (known from experience). Shipping
> > Samba 4.0.0pre1 in 2 weeks is impossible from my point of view.
> > I would like to vote for starting the new branches after
> > the plumbing design and the Winbind solution are done (and other possibly
> > blocking issues have been addressed).
> 
> I think as a step in the release direction, we should change from alpha to
> beta releases, once we have the basic logic for the s3fs integration done.
> I think
> https://gitweb.samba.org/?p=tridge/samba.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/s3fs-wip
> looks promising.
> 
> For 3.0.0 we had the following release sequence:
> 
> ...
> samba-3.0.0alpha21
> samba-3.0.0alpha22
> samba-3.0.0alpha23
> samba-3.0.0alpha24
> samba-3.0.0beta1
> samba-3.0.0beta2
> samba-3.0.0beta3
> samba-3.0.0rc1
> samba-3.0.0rc2
> samba-3.0.0rc3
> samba-3.0.0rc4
> samba-3.0.0
> 
> I think we should branch at rc1 time, from the 3.6.0 release cycle we
> learned
> that we would re-sync from master anyway from time to time.
> (Or we just re-sync from time to time during the beta releases.)

+1

> > I do also strongly argue against shipping the AD server only, except the
> > name will be different from s4. IMHO, all s3 features need to be supported in
> > the final s4 release (I think Lars wrote that also). Everything else would
> > be misleading.
> 
> I also agree. For an AD only thing we could do something like samba4wins,
> but I think we should aim for a real samba-4.0.0 release.
> 
> > I would really love to see s4 final, but to me it seems to be impossible to
> > see it in 2012.
> 
> I wouldn't be so pessimistic, I think 2012 sounds doable.
 
Oh, I just noticed this typo! I meant 2011, of course! Sorry, that was
really a bad one! I just wanted to say that this "in two weeks" thing is
not doable from my point of view.

Cheers,
Karo

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