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Difference between revisions of "Orbit/Promotion, Release, and Retention Policies"

(Bundle Retention)
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Recommended builds will be kept forever, the most recent one(s) on 'download.eclipse.org' but older ones will be moved to 'archive.eclipse.org' (which is not mirrored) The old, archived builds should rarely be needed, used only be used if someone needed to re-create some old build which was based upon it, such as for long term maintenance.  
 
Recommended builds will be kept forever, the most recent one(s) on 'download.eclipse.org' but older ones will be moved to 'archive.eclipse.org' (which is not mirrored) The old, archived builds should rarely be needed, used only be used if someone needed to re-create some old build which was based upon it, such as for long term maintenance.  
  
=== Bundle Retention ===
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=== Bundle Retention in active builds ===
  
We will have a long term retention policy for multiple versions of bundles, to be sure it doesn't grow indefinitely over the years. By policy, we will retain up to 3 versions of a bundle and after that, the older versions will be removed from active builds and repositories. Those older versions will of course still be in any archived builds, if they were ever used in a Recommended build. These 3 versions do not mean qualified versions, but means, for example, minor and service versions, such as Xerces 2.8.0, 2.8.1, and 2.9.0. Once 2.9.1 was put in the repository, 2.8.0 would be removed from active builds and repositories. Eclipse Projects may request waivers to this policy if needed for some specific cases (just open a bugzilla with what you need, why, and for how long, if known).  
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It is our Orbit project's policy that once a bundle is delivered in an R-build, it will be retained forever in that R-build (or its repository). But, in active (or, current) builds, to be used for future releases, we may remove old versions of bundles according to the following guidelines.
  
'''Comments from [[Martin Oberhuber]] and Kim Moir: '''
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* Normally up to 3 versions of a bundle can be in active builds. But after that, older bundle versions should be removed, since they would presumably never be used by other, active Eclipse projects. If projects or adopters still needed some older version, say for maintenance builds, they should get them from the older R-build repositories where they were last provided.
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* If committers are relatively sure that some older bundle versions are no longer being actively used by current Eclipse projects, they can be removed from active builds. This might only leave one or two of the most recent versions in active builds ... normally only two at most would truly be needed, and sometimes only one (maybe zero, in some exceptional cases). Committers must use their good judgment here. If there's any question or doubt about removing it, then it should not be removed ... but, you can always ask on orbit-dev, etc., for others' opinions or advise.
 +
 
 +
* There is no need to be overly aggressive about removing things, but we do need to be respectful of using our computing resources wisely. Other Eclipse project and adopters share in this responsibility ... and in this case, that means they need to let us know if they have some special case and need some old version even in active builds. This might be required for example if there is some subtle changes in signing, license files, etc., that must be obtained. Simply open a bugzilla with what is needed and why.
 +
 
 +
* Any removal of an older version will be done by M6 of the current yearly release cycle (M6 is normally considered the "API freeze" date). This allows exceptions or mistakes to be corrected in time for the yearly release. And M6 is the latest possible time ... committers should make an effort to do much earlier in a yearly release cycle.
 +
 
 +
* Older versions will stay in CVS, as they are, forever. That is, the older versions are simply removed from the map and build-feature file ... never from CVS nor existing R-build repositories. This is partially so someone could find them if needed to investigate something, but also so we can easily add them back to active builds if needed.
 +
 
 +
* Removals should be documented in bugzilla ... similar to how additions are documented.
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 +
 
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=== Comments ===
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'''Old Comments from [[Martin Oberhuber]] and Kim Moir: '''
 
Moved to the "discussion" tab
 
Moved to the "discussion" tab
  
  
 
[[Category:Orbit]]
 
[[Category:Orbit]]

Revision as of 16:12, 12 January 2011

Orbit itself does not have releases, per se, since the 3rd party jars that are bundled have already been released. But, we will still use the Eclipse Simultaneous Release rhythm to set deadlines for ourselves and promote and retain bundles.

An Orbit milestone date will be considered the same as the base Eclipse platform milestone date, since for anyone in a Simultaneous Release to use an Orbit Bundle, it would have to be ready (and final) at least a week or two before their milestone deadline.

Continuous Builds

Our continuous builds produce builds in the committers area. Their purpose is for the committers to have something to see or download and confirm all is as they expect it to be. These builds are often short lived and can be deleted without notice.

Weekly Declared Builds

Once per week, currently by Monday noon (Eastern time), the latest continuous build will be copied over to the downloads area. These are similar or analogous to weekly Integration Builds, and will be retained in place until the Milestone release.

Milestones and Recommended ("Final") Bundles Area

Once per milestone, (roughly simultaneous with the platform's milestone), the most recent Weekly Build will be declared the milestone build, and the earlier weekly builds deleted. The bundles from that milestone build, that committers judge as finished, will be copied to the downloads directory. This is to be considered the final home for the bundles added to Orbit. That is, these final bundles should not normally ever have to be re-built. In case they do, they will have different qualifiers in the fourth field. In this case, the older qualified versions will be kept for approximately 1 milestone period, to give consumers a chance to update any build scripts, without suddenly breaking their builds. We anticipate it being very rare to have to change a bundle after being moved to the final bundles area. Each Milestone Build will be retained until an Eclipse Simultaneous Release and then all deleted.

Issue: This permanent home for the bundles will not have "timestamp" directories, so it is easier to specify a permanent URL, write scripts, etc. The issue is that while these can currently be easily obtained one by one, but we have not yet decided what, if any, archive or update files to create for these final bundles.

It was decided in June 12, 2007 status meeting to (still) have dated directories for the "final" builds, and was decided to call them "R-builds", which may sound like "Released", but is "Recommended" for Orbit, since Orbit does not have Releases in the Eclipse sense of that word. The bundles in "Recommended" builds will only be changed (re-created) if there are serious bugs found with them. Even then, any "Recommended" builds will be retained long term, such as for 2 years or so, so build scripts will not break and be recreatable. It is expected that Recommended builds will be produced once or twice per year. Certainly for any yearly trains, but perhaps at other times, since not all projects always have to release only in June.

Milestone dates

The Orbit milestones dates will be a -1 delivery in Simultaneous Releases, to allow all projects to pick up prereqs (even the Platform, the 0 delivery).

Build Retention

Milestone builds will be retained until the Recommend build is produced.

Recommended builds will be kept forever, the most recent one(s) on 'download.eclipse.org' but older ones will be moved to 'archive.eclipse.org' (which is not mirrored) The old, archived builds should rarely be needed, used only be used if someone needed to re-create some old build which was based upon it, such as for long term maintenance.

Bundle Retention in active builds

It is our Orbit project's policy that once a bundle is delivered in an R-build, it will be retained forever in that R-build (or its repository). But, in active (or, current) builds, to be used for future releases, we may remove old versions of bundles according to the following guidelines.

  • Normally up to 3 versions of a bundle can be in active builds. But after that, older bundle versions should be removed, since they would presumably never be used by other, active Eclipse projects. If projects or adopters still needed some older version, say for maintenance builds, they should get them from the older R-build repositories where they were last provided.
  • If committers are relatively sure that some older bundle versions are no longer being actively used by current Eclipse projects, they can be removed from active builds. This might only leave one or two of the most recent versions in active builds ... normally only two at most would truly be needed, and sometimes only one (maybe zero, in some exceptional cases). Committers must use their good judgment here. If there's any question or doubt about removing it, then it should not be removed ... but, you can always ask on orbit-dev, etc., for others' opinions or advise.
  • There is no need to be overly aggressive about removing things, but we do need to be respectful of using our computing resources wisely. Other Eclipse project and adopters share in this responsibility ... and in this case, that means they need to let us know if they have some special case and need some old version even in active builds. This might be required for example if there is some subtle changes in signing, license files, etc., that must be obtained. Simply open a bugzilla with what is needed and why.
  • Any removal of an older version will be done by M6 of the current yearly release cycle (M6 is normally considered the "API freeze" date). This allows exceptions or mistakes to be corrected in time for the yearly release. And M6 is the latest possible time ... committers should make an effort to do much earlier in a yearly release cycle.
  • Older versions will stay in CVS, as they are, forever. That is, the older versions are simply removed from the map and build-feature file ... never from CVS nor existing R-build repositories. This is partially so someone could find them if needed to investigate something, but also so we can easily add them back to active builds if needed.
  • Removals should be documented in bugzilla ... similar to how additions are documented.


Comments

Old Comments from Martin Oberhuber and Kim Moir:

Moved to the "discussion" tab

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