Re: GDB 5.2 et.al. release schedule

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313 at cygnus dot com>]

> See also: http://gcc.gnu.org/develop.html
> 
> There have been plenty of concerns raised about the unreliability of the GDB release cycle: 12 months, 18 months, ... I'm looking for more robust ways of addressing this.  (btw the 5.2 release manager role is still available) (I promise not to break an arm again :-).


(I've had a very welcome expression of interest for the release role).


> In previous e-mail I've mentioned the intention to branch 5.2 mid Feb and release it mid March.
> 
> With those two points in mind, and looking across at GCC for idea's, I'd like to propose that GDB have a more formal release schedule.
> 
> I should note that GDB 5.1 established a new precident - it was released with several targets (HP/UX, ALPHA) known to be broken.  Being willing to do this greatly simplified the task of the release person as they should no longer feel guilty when documenting that certain targets/natives just don't work.
> 
> GCC's cycle is every 6 months.  GDB could go for 12, 6, 4, or 3 months.  In the below I've somewhat arbitrarially chosen 4 months.  That would give three major and (possibly) three minor releases a year.
> 
> 01 Jan - 5.1.1
> 02 Feb - branch (5.2)
> 03 Mar - release (5.2)
> 04 Apr
> 05 May - 5.2.x?
> 06 Jun - branch (5.3)
> 07 Jul - release (5.3)
> 08 Aug
> 09 Sep - 5.3.x?
> 10 Oct - branch (5.4)
> 11 Nov - release (5.4)
> 12 Dec


No objections (I guess everyone knows it is me that gets to do this). 
I've added cronjobs to send out reminders of the branch and release 
dates.  The branch reminder (branch in two weeks) should appear in about 
a week.

Andrew