[Python-Dev] Release candidate followed by feature freeze?

[Guido van Rossum]

I'm considering to issue a release candidate before the final 2.0
release.  I'd like to poll opinions about this (we haven't had a
PythonLabs group meeting about this yet).

The importance of a release candidate (RC) is twofold: we announce it
widely so it (hopefully) gets a lot of testing -- necessary since a
lot of things have changed again since beta2; and we impose a checkin
stop once the RC is out, with exceptions only allowed by the release
manager to fix showstopper bugs found in the RC.

This will hopefully avoid a disaster like we had with the buggy
last-minute changes in beta2 (for which I take full responsibility).

If the idea of a RC sounds okay, I'd like to propose to release it on
October 5.  The final release would still be on October 10, or perhaps
1-2 days later.  Much less than a week between the RC and the final
release is not good because it doesn't give testers enough time to try
out the RC; much more than a week is bad because the developers get
antsy when they can't check in their changes!

This means that any current bug reports and patches that aren't in the
RC, WON'T BE FIXED in the final release!  Think about it.  This is a
good thing, so we won't be able to screw up the final release at the
last moment.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)