[Gluster-devel] Release 4.0: Schedule and scope clarity (responses needed)

[Shyam Ranganathan]

Hi,

As this is a longish mail, there are a few asks below, that I request 
folks to focus and answer.

4.0 is a STM release (Short Term Maintenance), further, 4.1 is also 
slated as a STM release (although the web pages read differently and 
will be corrected shortly). Finally 4.2 would be the first LTM (Long 
Term ...) in the 4.x release line for Gluster.

* Schedule *
The above also considers that 4.0 will release 2 months from 3.13, which 
puts 4.0 branching (also read as feature freeze deadline) around 
mid-December (4 weeks from now).

4.0/1/2 release calendar hence looks as follows,

- Release 4.0: (STM)
   - Feature freeze/branching: mid-December
   - Release date: Jan, 31st 2018
- Release 4.1: (STM)
   - Feature freeze/branching: mid-March
   - Release date: Apr, 30th 2018
- Release 4.2: (LTM, release 3.10 EOL'd)
   - Feature freeze/branching: mid-June
   - Release date: Jul, 31st 2018

* Scope *

The main focus in 4.0 is landing GlusterD2, and all efforts towards this 
take priority.

Further big features in 4.0 are around GFProxy, protocol layer changes, 
monitoring and usability changes, FUSE catchup, +1 scaling.

Also, some code cleanup/debt areas are in focus.

Now, glusterfs/github [1] reads ~50 issues as being targets in 4.0, and 
among this about 2-4 are marked closed (or done).

Ask1: Request each of you to go through the issue list and coordinate 
with a maintainer, to either mark an issues milestone correctly (i.e 
retain it in 4.0 or move it out) and also leave a comment on the issue 
about its readiness.

Ask 2: If there are issues that you are working on and are not marked 
against the 4.0 milestone, please do the needful for the same.

Ask 3: Please mail the devel list, on features that are making it to 
4.0, so that the project board can be rightly populated with the issue.

Ask 4: If the 4.0 branching date was extended by another 4 weeks, would 
that enable you to finish additional features that are already marked 
for 4.0? This helps us move the needle on branching to help land the 
right set of features.

Thanks,
Shyam