Hawthorn update

[Ned Batchelder]

Hey everyone,

I know people have been wondering what's happening with Hawthorn, the next Open edX release.  We had been waiting on the upgrade from Django 1.8 to Django 1.11.  That is now done!

But the new European Union law General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is set to take effect on May 25th.  We are working hard on adding underpinnings for that support, and would like to provide them in Hawthorn.

So the current plan is:

• We'll create a Hawthorn.1 Beta 1 next week, from master.
• Once enough GDPR support has landed, we will create the Hawthorn master branches from master, and release a first Hawthorn.1 release candidate.

This means that features can shift or be added between Beta 1 and RC 1.  The Beta will be for testing the general upgrade paths and functionality of the code that has been written since Ginkgo was cut 9 months ago.  I want to get that code into testers hands sooner rather than later, even if it means that there could still be significant changes in Hawthorn.

I hope this makes sense to people.  Of course feel free to raise concerns.

Thanks,

--Ned.