I'd like to better come up to speed with the release management process. Because I added files in an uncordinated way during the end of the release cycle, there are some problems with docs in 4.6.2 final.
Do you use some sort of release checklist? A cursory inspection on the web site didn't uncover anything, but I seem to remember seeing stuff like that before.
In the past I've used sign-off sheets where each group (test, doc, dev, etc) approves a release before it can proceed. Something like that within ETP might be helpful, possibly with email alerts. Here's an incomplete list of steps:
- Target date set by release manager
- Cvs checkin freeze
- Test team verifies no blocking bugs
- Documenter verifies docs updated
- Candidate tarball rolled
- Full install and smoke test of tarball using documented install instructions
- Tarball released to web
- Docs updated on web
- Announcement posted
Obviously an automated install and smoke test on a daily basis would be nice and would drastically improve build quality but I'm contracting at a billion-dollar software company that can't manage to do that well so I guess us Open-Source volunteers can take another few months to get to that point.
