[Pkg-xen-devel] [Xen-devel] Notes from Xen BoF at Debconf15

[Jan Beulich]

>>> On 08.09.15 at 11:24, <ian.campbell at citrix.com> wrote:
> Release cycle
> =============
> 
> Waldi commented that the stable release cycle was too long. Would like
> to see a release after any large security update.
> 
> We asked if the RCs for stable releases were valuable, the answer was
> "not so much".
> 
> Waldi would prefer to avoid cherry-picking security fixes if possible.
> 
> We asked if we thought Xen stable releases could be added to Debian
> point releases. Waldi thought they likely could be, citing the
> inclusion of Linux stable releases in point releases.
> 
> Our stable releases follow a similar set of rules to Linux, we think
> we implement them more faithfully (less feature or feature-like
> backports)
> 
> ACTION: Talk to Jan about making changes to stable release process.

That's kind of the opposite of what we quite recently changed to
(a [hopefully] more predictable four month cycle). Apart from the
question what "large" is, doing a release after any large security
update seems unreasonable to me (not only because of giving up
the predictability, but also because of the overhead involved,
which is there even if we ditched the RCs). I have to admit that I
fail to see why Debian would be different than other distros, all
cherry picking security fixes until a new stable release becomes
available. If otoh other major distros voiced similar desires, I
think we'd have to once again re-think our stable release cadence.

Jan