the freeze: it's getting cold in herre

Here's what the release schedule says:

  2013-01-20  5.17.8    Contentious changes freeze
  2013-02-20  5.17.9    User-visible changes freeze
  2013-03-20  5.17.10   Full code freeze

So, 5.17.10 is out, hooray!  Now... we are frozen!

Mostly.

Here's what it means: The only things hitting blead should be:

a. fixes to blockers
b. perldelta updates
c. fixes to errors in documentation
d. new versions of CPAN libraries, iƒƒ the only changes are to:
  1. fix blockers
  2. move from a "dev version" to a stable version number
  3. cope with changes in blead

I am not made of stone.  If you think something that doesn't quality really
deserves to get in because it's $Whatever, say so.

Tomorrow, I will post an update on blockers.  Here is a sneak peak:  I think we
have more of them this week than we did last week.  I'm not yet sure how I feel
about this.

In my experience, as a project comes to a release, it's natural to see more
blockers get identified.  Some of this happens when pending fixes get applied,
some is each user's hope to see his current tough bug fixed before the freeze.
Another part is the routine finding of gross bugs that, because they've only
just been found near the release date, get marked as blockers because we can't
just trust them to get fixed.  This happens either because they're newfound
bugs or because they get noticed in the list of existing bugs.

I don't know yet whether we're just doing the usual pre-release routine or
what.

Tomorrow, I am going to flip through the last few days mail again for the
reports of "things that should be marked blockers" and mark more of them
blockers.  Tomorrow evening, I will send a new blocker summary.  Tonight, I
am going to sleep.

-- 
rjbs

• the freeze: it's getting cold in herre by Ricardo Signes