[xwiki-devs] [VOTE] Change the release cycle to 1 month

Hi devs, Executive summary: * Replace our 3 month release cycle by a 1 month release cycle. Needs and advantages: * Be able to get our changes faster to our users. Importantly, bugfixes are released faster to users. Note: it’s not because we release faster that our users have to upgrade as fast. They can skip some versions if they want/need. * Be able to get more feedback more quickly from users. Right now, most (if not all) of our users are testing only final versions. They’re not testing milestones or RCs and thus we usually only know about problems after the final has been released and we incorporate the change in the next one (to be released 3 months later) or we have to do a bugfix release. * Get closer to cloud needs. Nowadays, could offerings happen more and more and operating a cloud means bringing improvements and fixes as fast as possible. Some software in the cloud are even updated/patched several times per day. We’re not there yet but we’re trying to get closer by reducing from 3 months to 1 month * This also means more marketing for the xwiki project since other site relay the new whenever a final version is released Proposal Details: * 1 month split in: 3 weeks to release a RC + 1 week to release the final version. It’s very important to keep the RC as a meeting point and ensuring all is going to be ready on time for the final release (jiras are closed or moved to the next release, CI is passing, documentation and RN are ready, etc). * Split large features into smaller chunks. It doesn’t matter if some code is released but unused for example (provided the build is passing). For larger refactoring that absolutely cannot be split into 3 weeks chunks (I’m not sure that really exists) then we can use branches (and create a CI job to ensure integration). * Less need for bugfix releases of stable versions. For LTS it’s still required though. * Note that this 1 month release strategy will not generate more releases (and thus more work) over the year since we’re already releasing every 2-3 weeks ATM (milestones, RCs, et) * Version Naming: from N.0 to N.10 where N is the cycle name. The reason for 11 releases and not 12 is to account for slippages + potential bugfix release at the end of the cycle for stabilization + holidays. We might even be able to do only 10 releases and not 11 but I’m suggesting we try with 11 for now. When: * I’m proposing to start this process with the 8.4 release (starting on the 10th of October). Since that version is already supposed to be a stabilization release (and thus a short 1 month release) it’s not going to change anything. We should also do bugfix releases after 8.4 is releases: 8.4.1, 8.4.2, etc till the end of the year * Then starting 9.0 we really start doing 1 month releases. WDYT? Here’s my +1 to try this. Thanks -Vincent