M9 endgame begins: checkins on M9 blockers or approvalM9 only

[Mike Beltzner]

(follow-up to mozilla.dev.planning / dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org)

Yesterday in #granparadiso, stuart and gavin were asking some good
questions of the endgame drivers (represented by damons and yours
truly) about:

- how do I nominate a patch to be considered for M9, even if I don't
think it should _block_ M9?
- what does an approval+ mean if the patch isn't blocking M9?
- what happens when I nominate a patch to be considered? how do I know
if the drivers have looked?

To solve this, mconnor will shortly be adding a "approvalM9" flag to
bugzilla which can be requested on any patch. From here until the M9
code freeze, only patches that meet the following criteria will be
allowed to land on trunk:

- patches marked approvalM9+
- patches for bugs marked blocking1.9+ / blocking-firefox3+ with a
target milestone of mozilla1.9 M9 or Firefox 3 M9
- patches that do not affect Firefox builds

If you believe something should block beta, you should be nominating
it for blocking1.9? or blocking-firefox3? with a target milestone of
M9. Marking a patch as approvalM9? means that you are asking drivers
to consider that patch for inclusion in the beta, but do not believe
it should block beta.

If endgame drivers believe a patch should be taken only *after* M9,
they will mark approvalM9- and also mark approval1.9+. Once M9 is
completed, the approvalM9 flag will be deleted and checkin rules will
revert to a state where only approval1.9+ will be required to check in
any patch on a bug that isn't a blocker.

NOTE: under these rules, approval1.9+ means you are approved for
*after* M9.

Endgame drivers are triaging the following lists daily:
- approvalM9? requests
- approval1.9? requests on bugs marked blocking+ and blocking?
- blocking1.9? and blocking-firefox3? requests giving triage priority
to those with target milestone of M9

So, what's the process for our contributors? Well, follow this handy
chart!

* I want to nominate a bug to block the beta
---> flag blocking? and set TM to M9

* I want to nominate a bug to block, don't know/care what milestone
---> flag blocking? and set TM to --- or future milestone

* I want to propose that a bug which is already a blocker should block
M9
---> change the TM to M9, comment in the bug, and email mozilla-1...@mozilla.org
who should notice those sorts of changes on a tightly controlled bug
list anyway

* I want to nominate a patch to land for M9 but don't think it blocks M9
---> request approvalM9?

* I want to nominate a patch to land after M9
---> request approval1.9?

* Anything not covered here (should be edge casey)
---> email mozilla-1...@mozilla.org and ask specifically

yours with appreciation,
endgame drivers (with the help of stuart and gavin)