GNOME 1.4 Release Projected for Late March

From:   Daniel Veillard <Daniel.Veillard@imag.fr>
Reply-To:       foundation-list@gnome.org
To:     foundation-list@gnome.org
Cc:     foundation-announce@gnome.org
Subject:        Minutes of the GNOME Foundation Board meeting 23 January 2001
 

      Minutes of the GNOME Foundation Board meeting 23 January 2001
      =============================================================


Presents:
=========

    Havoc Pennington (chairing)
    Jim Gettys              
    Raph Levien             
    Owen Taylor             
    Dan Mueth               
    John Heard              
    Daniel Veillard  (minutes)
    Bart Decrem
    Maciej Stachowiak       

  Invited GUADEC 2 organizers:
    Claus Sorensen
    Martin Wahlen
    Kenneth Christiansen


Regrets:
========
    Federico Mena Quintero  


Absents:
========
    Miguel de Icaza

Administrativia:
================
    - next meeting in two weeks

    - 3 Guadec organizers were invited to the meeting
      Kenneth Christiansen, 
      Martin Wahlen, 
      Claus Sorensen


Decisions:
==========
    - Draft 1.4 Schedule approved by the Board, see at the end
    - Main themes for GUADEC 2 are defined and there is a set
      of cooordinators for each

Work Done:
==========


  ACTION: Havoc will push GUADEC advertizing, and check with numbers with
          Mathieu
  => Done


Work in progress:
=================

  ACTION: Maciej to write a new (hopefully final ?) license policy proposal.
  => we got mail from RMS
  => Not had time to do it yet, pending
  => Maciej is struggling with the fact that contenting everybody seems
     impossible. A new version should be posted and discussed.
     
  ACTION: John to get a schedule in agreement with other board members
          before the end of the week
  => Not sent up.
     The schedule is that the work will start beginning next week with
     a new lawyer, he need to have some questions answered before this
     get written

  ACTION: John send mail to gnome-hacker about Gnome-2.0 
  => pending, John will send it first to the Board.

  ACTION: Bart to resend Proposed Membership Guidelines to foundation list
  => pending need to be on next agenda

New:

  ACTION: John to give to Bart the phone # of the lawyer.

  ACTION: Maciej to forward the final release schedule to hacker, and get
          it posted widely

Agenda:
=======


- GUADEC first, since Kenneth and Martin will be there.

   => What's the theme of the conference, that's an opportunity
      going forward
      + Gnome 2.0
      + Interoperability
      + Usability
      + And what GNOME is, present the new 1.4 platform
   => Try to focuse more on workgroup meetings rather than a lecture.
   => User day on Sunday forcusing more on the current Gnome platform
      2 tracks one for User and one for Developers on Sunday
   => Total number of session
      6 slots per day each 2 hours => 18 slots plus keynotes
      For each of these themes one person is responsible:
      - Havoc: Gnome 2.0
      - Andy/Bart: Usability
      - Jim/Daniel: Interoperability  
      - Maciej: Gnome 1.4

  ACTION: by next week we should have a rough estimate of the number
          of tracks needed
      
   There is a GUADEC call every Friday to help setup GUADEC II,
   contact Bart if interested
      
   => first GNOME Foundation meeting on the 5th same place
      need a room for 30 for the full day

   Mandrake is interested in sponsorship, HP and IBM Denmark too.
   For the moment 5 people asked for financial help (maybe not
   more than 10 since the expiration is Friday).
   For the moment there is no clear public registration, should be
   provided soon.
   GUADEC 1 was about 60 person, 10 had travel expense covered

- Minutes from last week approved
- review outstanding actions

- note that we agreed to the LinuxWorld conference costs in lieu of
   Eazel's fee
   => approved


- check that we're moving forward on incorporation
   => Done the lawyer is now assigned, Bart will work to help him
      going forward

- check on GNOME 1.4 status and concrete timetable
   A draft version approved by the Board is availble below

   => this is in large part tied to Nautilus release schedule
   => translation group need the last 10 days stable to finalize
   => Bonobo/Gnome VFS/Gnome print are the 3 main libraries which
      are the challenges to get the schedule
      + bonobo is supposed to be frozen
   => Beta release will have to be coordianted with the Greg and Lesley
      comm team, they need info to build the PR. Possibly a Press tour.

   => Suggestions to have point releases of 1.4 until 2.0 is out.
     + PR
     + allow to plan updates and push them forward
     + better information for users
     + probably every 3 months
     This need to be rediscussed, with the people involved and on the
     future agenda

---------------- Draft schedule -----------------
2/1   Library freeze date - create 1.4 branches, bug fix only mode
2/8   Freeze date for everything else - bug fix only mode, branch as needed
2/8   Drop dead date for packages - any proposed new packages which are
      not ready will be dropped)
2/15  Package due date for GNOME 1.4 Beta 1 (maintainers must upload 
                                             packages by this date)
2/17  GNOME 1.4 Beta 1

2/26  GNOME 1.4 Beta 2 package due date
2/28  GNOME 1.4 Beta 2 (based on Nautilus release candidate)

3/6   GNOME 1.4 beta 3 package due date
3/8   GNOME 1.4 Beta 3 (based on Nautilus 1.0)
3/8   Hard freeze except for docs and translations - code changes may
      only go in for critical bugs as reviewed by Release Team (or the
      GNOME Foundation board for hard cases).

3/16  GNOME 1.4 Release Candidate 1 package due date
3/18  GNOME 1.4 Release Candidate 1
3/18  Hard freeze for everything, including docs and translations -
      code changes may only go in for critical bugs as reviewed by
      Release Team and GNOME Foundation board.

3/25  GNOME 1.4 Final package due date - but no changes expected from RC1
3/27  GNOME 1.4 Final


Notes:

* Jacob said he would make gnome-core releases in time for each beta
* George fixed gdm2 and is working on xalf and grdb integration
* This schedule is aggressive but on the edge of feasible. In the
  worst case, by aiming for this schedule we will be doing fairly well
  after slippage.
* We will be tracking open release issues in the bugzilla.gnome.org
  under the "GNOME 1.4 Release Engineering" product.

Open issues:

* Library freeze date must be checked with maintainers
* Gtk release target dates (to raise with Owen)
* new control-center release (boc can likely take care of it)
* relevant bonobo dates, if any (to raise w/ Miguel and Michael)
* PR dates - due dates for draft and final press releases, etc (Leslie
  and Greg working on these)
----------------

Daniel