[xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Staging Period?

Hi everyone, I was thinking about the regression found on the 2.0M4 release yesterday. I think we should have an official testing period between the code freeze and the release (called the staging period) when everyone who want to help could test the release before we make it official. Something like a 2 days period for a 2 or 3 weeks release. This could be done easily with Nexus (which we have installed already - it needs to be configured). We could set it up and try it for the next release (2.1 onwards). Since it needs 2-3 days per release this would mean accounting for it in the roadmaps/timelines. That said, since a release should always be done on a branch, the devs can continue to work on the next release while the staged release is being tested. It would affect the amount of things we put in a release if we keep the same period of 2 weeks for RCs and 3 weeks for milestones but I don't think this is a problem. It just means we need to be careful not to overcommit in general. Obviously the ideal is still to have as many automated functional tests as possible and to reduce this period to the minimum. WDYT? Thanks -Vincent