Questions regarding new release cycle

[Tang, Klee]

Hi Chromium team,

 

We are from the Amazon Silk Browser Mclient team. We were reading through the new release cycle doc and having some questions regarding: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/refs/heads/main/docs/process/release_cycle.md

·         The doc mentions, “The extended stable channel is only available to enterprises, who can enable it via enterprise policies.” How can this extended stable channel be available for AWS Silk?

·         After stable promotion, there will be stable refresh and extended stable refresh. For v94, we decided to opt into the eight-week cycle. We are wondering how the extended stable refresh will ship to us? Is there any site we could have access to it?

·         Will the extended stable refresh be like the dot release push at the end?

 

Thanks,
Amazon Silk MClient Team

 

[Alex Mineer]

Hello,

If you're asking about configuring Google Chrome in your own enterprise environment, I'd encourage you to leverage the resources available here; they describe how to configure your environment to make use of the new channel. The TargetChannel policy is utilized for this purpose; there is no standalone downloader available. Refreshes for Google Chrome on Extended Stable will be similar to refreshes for Stable, e.g. for Windows 93.0.4577.63 was our first push and 93.0.4577.82 was a refresh - Extended Stable will follow a similar pattern for refreshes, with the build number (final digits, e.g. .63 and .82 in prior example) being incremented for refreshes.

If you're asking because you'd like to use the new 8W channel as the basis for your product that's developed using Chromium, then you can use every other milestone release branch (i.e. the ones found here), and any relevant security fixes that have been backported should be available assuming you are tracking tip of branch.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have further questions.

Cheers,

Alex

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[Tang, Klee]

Hi Alex,

 

We are currently at 8weeks v94 release cycle. And we are seeing the current extended stable is listed in Windows and Mac only.

And there is no extended stable section for Android for v94.

 

Since our team is based on Android, want to double check:

1. Will there be extended stable refresher also for Android platform?
2. If so, where can we track the upcoming extended stable refresher other than the announcement page at Chrome Releases site. We used to use OmahaProxy, however the site seems doesn’t reflect new extended stable.

 

Let me know if you want any other information.

 

Thanks,

Klee

 

From: Alex Mineer <ami...@google.com>
Date: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 2:38 PM
To: "Tang, Klee" <tang...@amazon.com>
Cc: "bran...@chromium.org" <bran...@chromium.org>, "silk-mag...@amazon.com" <silk-mag...@amazon.com>
Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] Questions regarding new release cycle

 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you can confirm the sender and know the content is safe.

[Tang, Klee]

Hi team,

Want to follow up with this since we haven’t heard back from you yet. We have to adjust our release plan if there is no stable refresher to Android platform.

Any answer for those questions will be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Klee

[Alex Mineer]

Sorry for the delay, responses inline below.

On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 11:02 AM Tang, Klee <tang...@amazon.com> wrote:

Hi team,

Want to follow up with this since we haven’t heard back from you yet. We have to adjust our release plan if there is no stable refresher to Android platform.

Any answer for those questions will be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Klee

 

From: "Tang, Klee" <tang...@amazon.com>
Date: Friday, October 22, 2021 at 1:52 PM
To: Alex Mineer <ami...@google.com>
Cc: "bran...@chromium.org" <bran...@chromium.org>, "silk-mag...@amazon.com" <silk-mag...@amazon.com>, "Burnside, Carissa" <car...@amazon.com>, "R, Mohan Sundharam" <rm...@amazon.com>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Questions regarding new release cycle

 

Hi Alex,

 

We are currently at 8weeks v94 release cycle. And we are seeing the current extended stable is listed in Windows and Mac only.

And there is no extended stable section for Android for v94.

 

Since our team is based on Android, want to double check:

1. Will there be extended stable refresher also for Android platform?

There will not be extended stable refreshes deployed for Google Chrome for the Android platform, nor for iOS or Linux - only Windows and Mac. This was somewhat implied in our announcement with the mention that only Enterprises can opt into the new stable via TargetChannel policies, coupled with the fact that TargetChannel policies don't exist for managing Android / iOS / Linux deployments in Chrome's enterprise tools today; if we ever extend these policies to those platforms, we may begin supporting the 8W release cycle for Android / iOS / Linux, but that would be a separate conversation at a later date. I'll update our release cycle documentation here to make it explicit that extended stable and refreshes are only supported for Windows and Mac at this time.

That being said, we will continue to cherry-pick security fixes that are applicable to various platforms (including Android) back to the extended stable branches while they are supported, and so if you are leveraging Chromium as the basis for your project you can continue to build from these release branches for the full 8W cycle.

 

1. If so, where can we track the upcoming extended stable refresher other than the announcement page at Chrome Releases site. We used to use OmahaProxy, however the site seems doesn’t reflect new extended stable.

Chromium Dash is the best place to track refresh schedules; we're currently working to slowly turn down OmahaProxy and build replacement functionality into Chromium Dash. OmahaProxy will continue to work for some time longer, and more formal documentation around the transition will be shared when we're closer to being ready, but it's advisable to begin transitioning to using Chromium Dash where possible.

[Tang, Klee]

Hi Alex,

 

Thank you for your clarification.

[Tang, Klee]

Hi Alex,

 

One more question regarding the extended stable refresher.

 

My understanding is for example after v95 release, if there is any security fix for v95 also applies to v94, it will be cherry picked to v94 extended stable refresher. In our case, the extended stable refresher doesn’t apply to Android, is that mean any security fix for v95 also applies to v94 Android won’t land to v94 branches?

[Alex Mineer]

As stated above:

That being said, we will continue to cherry-pick security fixes that are applicable to various platforms (including Android) back to the extended stable branches while they are supported, and so if you are leveraging Chromium as the basis for your project you can continue to build from these release branches for the full 8W cycle.

In addition to the details above, please note that we won't be able to cherry-pick all security fixes back to the extended stable branches - there may be some fixes that are too complex to cherry-pick safely, and other fixes might come from larger-scale security features (e.g. Site Isolation) that are also not possible to backport. This means that the 4W release branches (the primary release cycle) will be the most secure choice for consumers and are recommended wherever security is a primary concern.

Cheers,

Alex

[Tang, Klee]

Hi Alex,

 

We usually get an email on Friday regarding the branch cut, however we didn’t see any update or email for v97 branch cut from last Friday 11/5.

 

Do you know if there is any change for v97 branch cut time?

[Tang, Klee]

Hi Alex,

 

Friendly ping to follow up on this question since it’s blocking our release timeline.

[Alex Mineer]

The email was not sent (we'll send it shortly and will be updating our processes to ensure we don't miss this again) but please note you don't need to wait for the email; on the day of branch, as soon as the branch is available we'll enter relevant data and it will begin showing up here. You can simply use this page in the future.

[Tang, Klee]

Great! Thanks for the answer.