Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
Hi,

Your XEN ICT Team - Ricardo Rodriguez wrote:
  
Hi all,

I've been following the XE JIRA calendar, this users list, and devs and 
notifications ones but I am not sure I am understanding the situation.

As far as I can see by following devs and notifications there are some 
issues that are preventing the release of XE 1.2 RC2. Is this 
interpretation correct?
    

Indeed, we discovered some last minute bugs that unfortunately are 
blocking the release. We hope that tomorrow we'll be able to fix these 
bugs and make the release.

  
Somehow I've missed 1.2 RC1 and I would like to understand how the 
release process works.
    

Mostly, it is timeboxing process, meaning that after a stable version is 
released, we propose a release date for the next stable version and 
split the remaining time interval into equally distributed Milestones, 
keeping about 3 or 4 weeks for Release Candidates.

A few days before each milestone, the release manager goes through the 
remaining tasks planned for that release and decides which ones can wait 
for the next release, and which ones require all efforts in order to be 
fixed before the release. When all the necessary issues are fixed, the 
release manager sends a [vote] email to the devs list, and after the 
successful vote starts the release process, which takes almost a full 
day for XE.

After the release is done, meaning that all the files are uploaded to 
the maven repository and on the ObjectWeb download site, we have to 
update the Download page on xwiki.org, write a Release Notes page for 
that release, send announcement mails and write a blog post on the 
xwiki.org wiki, update several sites like wikipedia, wikimatrix and 
freshmeat, and hope that no critical bug was left undiscovered in the 
release.


In the RC phase, it is a bit more difficult to postpone bugs, since a 
stable version must be, well, stable. So, there are two more bugs in the 
export/packager tools, on which I'm working right now, and a Rights 
Manager UI problem which I must verify before committing it.

Sergiu
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Sergiu,

Thanks for such a detailed explanation, even more when you are trying to solve these pending issues!

I do think it will be worth to create a page or modify an existing one (like Community>Release Process) to include your explanation. Don't you think so? I am sure the process is clear for developers, but users, or administrators, could be a bit lost. Well, at least I was a bit lost!

I know this is a wiki, so I will add it to my own to-do list waiting for the brand new XWiki site.

Best regards and good luck with the RC2 release!

All the best,

Ricardo

-- 
Ricardo Rodríguez
Your XEN ICT Team