MDAnalysis release 2.0.0 schedule - upcoming beta/release candidate

[ialibay]

Hi all,

As some of you may be aware, our original plan was to release MDAnalysis 2.0.0 on the 10th of May, however given that:

1. MDAnalysis 1.1.1 was only advertised a few days ago
2. There are still many items left on the milestone target
3. There are large API changes being introduced
   

The core developers have decided to take a different approach for this release.

Our new aim is to do a beta (or release candidate) release on the 10th of May, and then follow up with a full release at the end of the month (currently set at the 28th of May). The beta (or release candidate) will be made available on pypi so that folks can start testing out the new features (and so that it can be used in the upcoming MDAnalysis workshop).

The plan is as follows:

1. A "soft" code freeze will be put in place for end of day Saturday 8th of May Eastern coast (8 am BST). Any commits that fail to make it in by then won't be included in the rc1/beta release.
2. By Monday 10th of May end of day:
   • Merge develop into master (lead: @richardjgowers )
   • Cut a release (2.0.0b1 or 2.0.0rc1) and upload to testpypi/pypi (lead: @IAlibay )
   • Release a blog post explaining the release, and most importantly what features/bug fixes didn't make it in (and when the final release will be expected) (lead: @IAlibay )
3. beta/rc1 release gets used as the basis for the workshop
4. Anything currently on the 2.0.0 milestone + bug fixes (no more API changes) are accepted to be merged for 2.0.0 until the 24th of May (final code freeze deadline)
5. We aim for a release on the 28th of May.
   

We will follow up with an announcement once the beta/release candidate version of 2.0.0 is available.

Best regards,

The MDAnalysis core developers