[jboss-dev] Plan for next JBossAS 4.x releases

Hello folks, after internal discussions we came up with the following plan for the next JBossAS 4.x releases. If you have any comments, objections or alternatives to propose, please go ahead, we're still in the initial phases. JBoss-4.0.5 is the last version in Branch_4_0. In JIRA you'll find a 4.0.5.SP1 without a fixed release date. This one is destined (if needed) for serious bug/security fixes but in general, development for this branch stops here. There is a new Branch_4_2 created by branching the latest from Branch_4_0: https://svn.jboss.org/repos/jbossas/branches/Branch_4_2/ This is a minor version increase so we can include updates to binaries like jgroups/jboss cache that introduce incompatibilities and thus would not be possible for a 4.0.x release. Minor feature changes/additions are also possible. In JIRA, v4.0.6 is essentially renamed to v4.2.0. The tentative dates for the first release are: 4.2.0.CR1, Jan/22nd - 4.2.0.GA, Mar/19th 4.2.0.CR1 breaks down as follows: 3 weeks - to define the scope of the release, library updates, dependencies, work on tasks 6 weeks - scope freeze, work on tasks 3 weeks - code freeze, testing, packaging, QA It's essential for all involved parties (developers, leads, PM, support) to participate in defining the scope of the first 4.2 release and record it in JIRA (essentially until JBW), since future 4.2.x releases will need to be compatible with this initial release. JIRA needs tidying-up to a manageable set of tasks because we now have 164 issues scheduled for 4.2.0.CR1 and we don't really have the luxury to spend much development time on this. The focus is really in component updates, testing and improving the overal quality. Our overal priority remains JBoss5. If you want to push tasks to future releases, you'll find also CR1's for 4.2.1, 5.0.1, 5.2.0. For the existing Branch_4_0 my proposal would be to rollback to the 4.0.5 release, because some changes have been committed to it since the release and we many not want all of them there. Finally, Fernando Nasser [fnasser(a)redhat.com] will be ultimately responsible for the productization of the 4.x releases, but I'll be here to assist anyway, especially in the initial stages of this effort, so please help Fernando in this difficult and complex task. We will follow up with more emails related to the transition of 4.0.x to 4.2.x. All comments are welcome. Thanks /Dimitris PS I'm tempted to name this branch "Oracle" ;-) "Neo", "Trinity", "Agent Smith" would do equally well. -- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dimitris Andreadis AS, Project Lead JBoss, a Division of Red Hat xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx