[U-Boot] [RFC] MW rule and its period

[Masahiro YAMADA]

Hi.



2014-10-22 4:34 GMT+09:00 Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de>:
> Dear Masahiro,
>
> In message <CAMhH57R2eBf26ONYD4fnLRWDQ=Bjy_0CRLM_yOPrZGdMwOQF9g at mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>>
>> Even Linux needs 7 weeks to be stabilized
>> in spite of much more commits than U-Boot.
>>
>> Do we really need 10 weeks?
>
> I think a fundamental difference between Linux and U-Boot is that in
> Linux the actual core is not changing so heavily, and the individual
> subsystems are much better isolated.  In U-Boot, we have a large
> number commits with architecture-wide impact, not to mention
> system-wide ones like the Kconfig / Kbuild or DM restructuring.
> So a bug introduced in Linux will often affect only a relatively small
> group of developers, while the rest can continue working basically
> unaffected.  In U-Boot it's easy to break all ARM, which will bring
> the majority of developers to a full stop.

Agreed, but a large number of global changes also means conflicts
between the master and the next branch if we close the MW for a long time.

Just my two yen.  :-)




>> So two options here I'd like to suggest
>>
>> [1] Every 2 months release with 2 weeks MW
>>
>> MW open: 2 weeks
>> MW closed: 6.5 weeks
>>
>> [2] Every 3 months release with 7 weeks MW
>>
>> MW open: 7 weeks
>> MW closed: 6 weeks
>
> I think 2 (...3) weeks of MW work pretty well for U-Boot; we should
> not need more.  Keeping the MW open too long just increases to efforts
> to make everything ready for release.  So in my opinion it boild sown
> if we want to shorten the release cycle as such.  I guess we whould
> have to try it out, but I fear it might easily backfire.
>

I think efforts for release preparation would not be so different.

If we shortened the release cycle, everyone would more focus on the
short-term development; big changes such as Kconfig, DM would become difficult.
I prefer [2].

Or another option I've come up with is
[3] Every 3 months release with two levels of MW

    - rc1: 3 weeks:  MW is "widely" open
      Giant changes (such as Kconfig switch) are only applicable
during this period

rc1 - rc2: 3 weeks:  MW is still "slightly" open
       Small or SoC-specific changes are still merged to the master branch

rc2 - release:       MW is really closed
       Only bug fixes are merged to the master branch




-- 
Best Regards
Masahiro Yamada