Revision as of 09:32, 12 January 2011

Feature Freeze (FF)

FeatureFreeze (FF) is one of the milestones in OpenStack's release schedule. Like all freezes, it happens at the end of the day (or 23:59 PST).

Freeze

Once FF kicks in, you are no longer allowed to merge branches containing new features into the current development release. Such branches should be rejected by the review team.

Rationale

FF ensures that sufficient share of the ReleaseCycle is dedicated to QA. Limiting the changes that affect the behavior of the software allow for consistent testing and efficient bugfixing.

FF occurs one week after BranchMergeProposalFreeze, to give time for reviewers to provide feedback and for developers to incorporate that feedback, before the branch gets merged.

Exception procedure

If you want to propose a branch containing a feature (that you believe has an acceptable importance/risk_of_regression ratio) for merging into the development release after FF, follow those steps:

• Make sure all your changes have thorough unit tests, especially if your patch touches an area of the code that currently is not well-tested
• Link the branch to the associated blueprint (if any)
• Propose your branch for merging
• In a specific comment on the merge proposal, provide the following information:
  • Benefit of the branch
  • Risk of regression
• In the merge proposal, "Request a review" from the Release Manager and set review type to "FFE"

You can check who is the current Release Manager by looking at the current Release schedule.

The Release manager, with the assistance of the core developers of the associated product, will evaluate the request and grant or deny the exception. The farther we are in the release cycle, the less likely it is for the exception to be granted. Remember that the next cycle is just a month away :)