What exactly do we expect from an RC release?

It's never been clear to me what sort of QA we hope to happen once an RC 
release is made each spring.  Nor is it evident what QA we actually do 
-- and whether that differs from that we do for a monthly development 
release.

Does an RC release get tested on more platforms than a monthly dev 
release?  Does an RC release get tested on more configurations than a 
monthly dev release?  Do we test its impact on CPAN more than we do a 
monthly dev release?

When I first became a committer I assumed that the answer to these 
question was "Yes" and that eventually people who had been at it longer 
than I would disclose the specifics.  But up until now I've never seen 
anything done specifically for RC releases above and beyond what we do 
for a monthly dev release.

Having done CPAN-river-testing from 2018 to 2020, I know that testing 
against CPAN is non-trivial.  And whatever code you've set up to handle 
monthly dev releases needs some modification to handle the different 
naming convention for RC releases.  So I'm not expecting us to put 
together some more intensive QA procedure on the fly.  For the time 
being, I'd simply like some discussion on the subject line:  What 
exactly do we expect from an RC release?

Thank you very much.
Jim Keenan

• What exactly do we expect from an RC release? by James E Keenan
• Re: What exactly do we expect from an RC release? by ASSI
• Re: What exactly do we expect from an RC release? by Dominic Hargreaves
• Re: What exactly do we expect from an RC release? by mah.kitteh via perl5-porters