Restricting mozilla-central to blocking2.0:beta7+ and blocking-fennec:beta1+
Mike Beltzner
At today's development meeting [1] we decided to restrict the tree to
Firefox 4 Beta 7 and Fennec 2 Beta 1 blockers in order to:
- keep mozilla-central free for landing these critical path issues,
- reduce the risk of regressions late in the beta cycle,
- increase focus on the remaining blockers,
- increase nightly testing focus on the existing changes since beta5
I will be updating the Tinderbox shortly to reflect that only patches
that fix the following set of bugs will be accepted until we have fully
frozen for Firefox 4 Beta 7:
(as always test fixes, bustage fixes, and NPOTB fixes will continue to
be allowed)
// Why this drastic measure?
The beta 7 code freeze has extended beyond the point where we're
comfortable, and we need to focus everyone's efforts on our feature
freeze milestone so it can be shipped to users. This also allows us to
get more focused nightly testing on only the changes we've deemed
essential to ship in beta 7.
// Who will enforce this?
We're asking everyone to help the sheriffs enforce this. We won't close
the tree, but we will change the rules on Tinderbox.
// Why can't this perfectly safe patch go in?
Because if it causes a regression, it burns up to a day of time in
tracking it down and fixing it. It can wait until after we're past the
beta7 milestone, instead.
// How can I continue to work on other blockers if the tree is closed?
TryServer awaits your patches, and the CompareTalos tool
(http://perf.snarkfest.net/compare-talos/) can help you understand the
relative performance impact.
Additionally, if you have a large set of chained patches that need to
land, you can contact joduinn, catlee to get a project branch assigned
to you, which comes will full testing.
// How will we deal with the backlog of patches?
We hope to be able to meter the tree once the restriction is lifted, as
we've done in the past, in order to have an orderly set of landings. If
things get really backed up, we may also use a project branch to create
a "beta8" tree in which things can land and then merge that over. We'll
discuss it as we get closer to the end-game.
cheers,
mike