[dtp-pmc] DTP 1.5 ramp down process

[jograham@xxxxxxxxxx]

As the DTP 1.5 release approaches at the end of this month, we have to be
careful to provide consistent, predictable builds to Europa that avoid
further defect injection (new defects or regressions). As part of the
Europa coordinated release, DTP has provided a Rampdown Policy to the
Europa working group, and we have reviewed this policy in committer meeting
a number of times since it was first approved at the end of April:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/DTP_1.5_Rampdown_Policy

We are now in the "Test Pass" for DTP 1.5RC3, with a "Test and Fix Pass"
beginning next Tuesday, June 5, and continuing through Monday, June 11.
Note also that all bugs/enhancements must be approved by the PMC (that is,
at least two +1 votes) according to the policy for RC3, RC4 and any final
DTP 1.5 builds. In order to check that we maintain this process, the build
will be adjusted as follows:

1. DTP 1.5RC3 6/1 nightly was built from a 6/1 EST snapshot of DTP CVS
2. All subsequent DTP 1.5 builds will be based on this snapshot as well
(note: this snapshot is not the same as HEAD going forward), unless
approved fixes are added
3. A committer wishing to address further DTP 1.5 bugs/enhancements needs
to get PMC approval, following the Rampdown Policy
4. Once PMC approval is granted, the committer can check in the necessary
changes. The plug-ins changed must be noted in the associated bug
5. Upon resolving an approved bug, the committer should send mail to
dtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx announcing the bug number
6. The build snapshot will updated but only for the plug-ins mentioned in
email to dtp-dev
7. Any build breakage or serious defects as a result of updating the
snapshot will cause fallback to the previous snapshot version until the
problem is addressed.

This means that no changes will appear DTP 1.5 builds going forward unless
they are approved and the snapshot is updated accordingly. While this
process might seem cumbersome, it is simply a check put in place to ensure
that we are meeting our Europa requirements by following the published
Rampdown Policy.

One potential problem here is that in the past we've allowed
documentation/code comment updates freely until the release. My sense is,
however, that this option has not been widely used, and hence the impact
should be small. If you do need to update plug-in documentation/comments,
just send an email to dtp-pmc about the change, and we'll update the
snapshot to accommodate it.

Please feel free to discuss any concerns about this build procedure or the
Rampdown Policy using the dtp-pmc mailing list.

Regards,
John Graham
Eclipse Data Tools Platform PMC Chair
Staff Software Engineer, Sybase, Inc.
http://dataplat.blogspot.com/