Schedules/KDE4/4.5 Release Schedule

Planned changes to the schedule:

• put a week between hard feature freeze and beta 1 tagging
• allow spelling changes during message freeze
• soft message freeze at beta1 time, during soft, ccmail on commit, bugfixes only
• hard message freeze at beta2 time, explicit exception at forehand required before commit.
• tagging freeze if r-t is responsive enough.
• dependency freeze at time of the soft feature freeze. big features with new dependencies need to go in before that freeze.

KDE SC 4.5 is a feature release for KDE SC 4. All dates given here are subject to revision, but we will try our best to stick to them if possible. The KDE Release Team is acting as the coordinator for this release.

All deadlines are due 23:59 UTC, but if you need a few more hours, notify someone from the release team.

KDE SC 4.5

April 26th: Dependency Freeze

From this moment on it is not allowed to add new dependencies or bump dependencies versions. It is possible to get an exception for this. Post the patch to reviewboard and add the release-team as reviewer. We will check if the dependency is needed and is available on all platforms.

In other words: If you have a feature that requires a new dependency or a version of a dependency that is higher than currently checked for in the build system, you need to have committed this change before this date.

April 26th: Soft Feature Freeze

Trunk is frozen for feature commits that are not listed in the planned feature document. Only bugfixes and the code implementing the listed features are to be committed after this date. The feature list also closes today.

Features not already finished or not listed on the planned features page will have to wait until KDE SC 4.6.

May 11th: Hard Feature Freeze

Trunk is frozen for all feature commits, even those listed in the planned feature document. Only bug fixes are allowed. Binary compatibility for new API is not yet required.

May 19th: Soft Message Freeze.

All translated messages (GUI strings) are frozen on this date. Only previously untranslated strings or clear errors in strings can be fixed. No major new strings changes should be done. It is ok to remove strings. Exception: Artwork (try to keep the number of new strings low anyways). Exception: Typo fixes can be fixed until Beta2 is released but you have to mail kde-i18n-doc saying you made a typo fix change.

May 19th: Tag Beta 1

Trunk is frozen for Beta 1 release tagging. Only urgent fixes, such as those fixing compilation errors, should be committed. The usual beta rules apply as soon as the Beta tarballs have been generated.

May 26th: Release Beta 1

Beta 1 becomes available for general consumption.

June 2nd: Documentation/Handbook Freeze

No more substantive changes to documentation or handbooks after this date. Typos, spelling and simple grammar changes are permitted.

June 2nd: Tag Beta 2

Trunk is frozen for Beta 2 release tagging. Only urgent fixes, such as those fixing compilation errors, should be committed.

June 9th: Release Beta 2

Beta 2 becomes available for general consumption. May 19th: Soft Message Freeze.

June 9th: Hard Message Freeze

Up to now you were able to do typo changes, but you had to mail kde-i18n-doc saying you made a typo fix change. From this moment on you need an explicit ok *forehand* from kde-i18n-doc for every single string change.

June 22nd: Tagging freeze

During tagging freeze only compilation fixes for all platforms are allowed to be committed. Everything else (even showstopper fixes) *have* to be run through reviewboard, with the release-team and the effected maintainers as reviewer.

June 23rd: Artwork and Bindings Freeze

All artwork is frozen on this date. No new artwork should be added. Existing artwork can continue to be tweaked and fixed.

No new additions to the language bindings, except optional bindings as permitting by the kde-bindings team.

June 23rd: Tag + release RC 1

Trunk is frozen for branching into branches/KDE/4.5. Afterwards, RC 1 release is tagged. Only urgent fixes, such as those fixing compilation errors, should be committed. As soon as the RC has been confirmed to build it will be released immediately.

June 13nd: Tagging freeze

During tagging freeze only compilation fixes for all platforms are allowed to be committed. Everything else (even showstopper fixes) *have* to be run through reviewboard, with the release-team and the effected maintainers as reviewer.

July 14th: Tag + release RC 2

RC 2 release is tagged. As soon as the RC has been confirmed to build it will be released immediately.

July 28th: Tag KDE SC 4.5

Branch is frozen for KDE SC 4.5 tagging. Only very urgent fixes, such as those fixing compilation errors, should be committed.

August 4th: Release KDE SC 4.5

KDE SC 4.5 becomes available for general consumption.