Fedora 9 Release Date Slips Two Weeks to 5/13/08

[bob]

At today's regularly scheduled meeting, the Fedora Engineering
Steering Committee (FESCo) decided that Fedora 9 release will be
slipping by exactly two weeks.

Because of other slippage, coupled with some technical difficulties
during this previous week, our Preview Release was unexpectedly
stalled. The Preview Release is where we expect to catch all manner
of last-minute bugs, do very heavy QA, and otherwise perform all the
final spit-and-polish. There needs to be sufficient time between the
PR and the release for testers to find and report issues.

There are less than two weeks remaining until the original target date
of April 29th. About a week before that date we have to have
everything locked and loaded for distribution by our mirrors. That
small a timeframe would then make the Preview Release -- normally a
very important part of our release schedule -- nearly useless.

This slip is not intended to make room for more changes, it is only
intended to make room for fixing the things we already know about, and
allowing new things to be found, and evaluated as release blocking, and
fixed. There are also a fair number of bugs we think we've already
fixed, but need wider audience testing to be sure.

The current blocker list is viewable at
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/showdepe...ide_resolved=1 however since there is nothing preventing people from adding bugs to this list it will get culled from time to time from things that aren't actually blockers. A (rather longer) list of things we'd like to see fixes for can be seen https://bugzilla.redhat.com/showdepe...ide_resolved=1 although this list does get less attention than the blocker list.

We deeply appreciate the value we get from our community in using our
development tree and testing our release attempts. Without your input,
our releases couldn't possibly be as good as they have been. Please
help us use these extra couple of weeks to make the already awesome
Fedora 9 even better!

-- Jesse Keating Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours?

(copy of News Item)

[Dan]

Strange as it seems, I think that's a good thing.

My new drive for it is still over a week away! <....>

[bob]

Agreed; any time that a release is slipped to fix bugs, it's a very good thing. That said, anyone with bugs on the Beta should submit them ASAP so that this time's well-spent by the developers. Even with a Testing Distro, we'd like to have as few glitches as possible in Final.

[Boricua]

Hi, any news regarding the release candidate scheduled for today?

[bob]

Funny you should ask! Here's the next email I got:

After some minor delays (like all rawhide flights grounded for a few
days of repair...), the Fedora Project is proud to announce the release
of Fedora 9 Preview!

This is a Preview release, it is fairly close to what the final product
will be like. This is the most critical release for the Fedora
community to use and test and report bugs on. This is the last major
public release before the final GOLD Fedora 9 release on May 13th (we
hope).

For this Preview release, we will be doing a staged offering. The first
stage, available now, will be via bittorrent. The second stage, which
should be available early next week, will be via our world wide
mirroring system, and will include jigdo.

Live images, KDE Live images, CDs and DVD options are available.
http://torrent.fedoraproject.org has a section marked "F9-Preview".

Please us bugzilla to report any problems you find (after making sure
that somebody else hasn't already reported the issues).

Thanks again for all the great testing work that the greater community
does throughout our development cycle! You make Fedora possible. You
are Fedora!

-- Jesse Keating Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours?

[AntMan]

I'm glad they pushed it back to allow time for bug fixing.....

Release it when it's ready......

[akex stone]

Bob,
I'm fairly sure no one's going to die, throw themselves off a tall chair, or immerse themselves in the neighbour's pool if it's a bit late. You can count me among those who appreciate the effort you fellas put in, and understand the pursuit of excellence.
Get some sleep, buy pizza, drink cognac, etc..

We'll still be here when you get back!

Alex.

[bob]

I just post the messages I get from the devs, being the unskilled laborer that I am.

[akex stone]

Originally Posted by bob

I just post the messages I get from the devs, being the unskilled laborer that I am.

I'm not doing your PR anymore then.

[Boricua]

Originally Posted by bob

Funny you should ask! Here's the next email I got:

Nice timing . I have being expecting this preview to see if I can finally jump from 32 bit to 64 bit without Anaconda failing detecting my raid (I reported the bug). No problem waiting two more weeks, or even more if necessary.

[sideways]

Pathetic, this will impact the reputation of Fedora for years, the Fedora project clearly needs a new leader who will kick ass and get things released on schedule.

Ok, only joking, someone posted the Douglas Adams quote recently

Originally Posted by Douglas Adams

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

[Aaron_H]

As I said in another thread, I'd would be (and therefore am) much happier that they're going to let the release slide if it means they can fix more bugs.

I did worry about the effectiveness of such a short lived preview release, but now this is given a longer lifespan I have no doubts that the fedora team is doing the right thing.

[OralDeckard]

Well I am very pleased that it has been delayed another two weeks. I decided to help out a little, and found a bug last night, and made my very first bugzilla report. And it was FIXED today Now I have even more time to help make the next Fedora release better

i think Jesse said it in the tes-list that the final would be likely to slip by a week or 2 so that i was prepared for

Just as I predicted in another thread some time ago

Wayne