Release timing

[Joel Peshkin]

Gervase Markham wrote:

>
> People seem to be persistently misunderstanding me ;-)

Must be that funny language varient you use :-)

>
> We should aim to make releases every X months (where people seem to 
> think X is 6). But if a release takes 8 months because people are 
> busy, or it takes a long time to stabilise, or for whatever reason, 
> the next release should be six months beyond that one, not four.

Right.  That is really the key.  If we take forever to stabilize a 
release, we should not be starting the next branch immediately on its 
heels.  Either we should lengthen the time between freezes so that we 
know we will have enough time or we should make it capable of varying so 
that we never start a new branch until we have stabilized the previous 
one.  If we believe that the 2.18 situation is a one-time situation, 
then we should make it capable of varying and expect to do so only rarely.