Re: [boost] 1.46 closing for new libraries tomorrow

Subject: Re: [boost] 1.46 closing for new libraries tomorrow
From: Marshall Clow (mclow.lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-12-19 17:33:32

On Dec 19, 2010, at 1:52 PM, Edward Diener wrote:

> On 12/19/2010 2:44 PM, Vladimir Prus wrote:
>> 
>> Our calendar at
>> 
>> 	http://www.boost.org/development/index.html
>> 
>> say that 1.46 will be closed for new libraries tomorrow. I believe we
>> have two libraries that were accepted, but not released. On those,
>> Interval Containers library appears to have been merged to release
>> branch already. The other one, Ratio, does not appear to be present
>> in trunk, and therefore is not likely to be included in 1.46.
>> 
>> The next deadline is on Jan 10, when the trunk will be closed for major
>> changes.
> 
> Boost 1.45 was release on November 19 and one month later the next release is closed to new libraries. Is this the normal Boost policy regarding releases ?

Yes, it is.
IIRC, new libraries cannot be added to the release branch in the six weeks before a release.

> I ask that only because it seems it leaves little time between the one release and the next ( one month ) for new libraries to get into the next release. I do realize that Boost is on a quarterly release cycle, and do appreciate that fact, but that each release has only a month ( or 1/3 of the 3 months allotted time frame), to bring in new libraries from the previous release does seem a bit limiting.

New (accepted) libraries may be added to the trunk immediately - irrespective of where we are in the release cycle.
In fact, they should be added to the trunk ASAP upon acceptance; this means that the test systems can start running tests.

BTW - 1.45.0 was released late; usually there are six weeks, not one month between releases where new libraries can be merged to the release branch.

I can't speak for the release managers, but I believe that the goal here is to stabilize the release branch as early as possible, so that when 1-Feb comes there are no stability concerns.

I believe that these are the milestones:
        T-6 weeks - release branch closed for new libraries
        T-3 weeks - release branch closed for major code changes
        T-2 weeks - release branch closed for all changes.

but I could be wrong. The calendar on the web site is definitive.

-- Marshall