LinuxTag, Release Interviews

At LinuxTag, I conducted interviews on release management with developers from various projects, including Gentoo and OpenOffice.org. One question regarding time-based releases relates to the most appropriate release frequency. Should you do a release every 6 months, every 12 months or what? So far, Gentoo has done four releases a year. Unlike I initially thought, these weren't mere snapshots but real (i.e. tested) releases. They are currently moving away from four to two releases a year because they say that preparing a release takes significant effort and doesn't leave enough time for development when you try to make a release every three months. On the other hand, OpenOffice.org follows a (roughly) 18 month cycle. This is partly because Sun wants to sell a boxed version based on OpenOffice.org and customers wouldn't buy a new version if the cycle frequency was much higher. It also allows other commercial products to appear, such as books; they would be constantly out of date if new releases came out every few months. Some community members would like to see more frequent releases, however, and it will be interesting to see what model will be employed in the future.

LinuxTag, Social Event, quality talks

The rest of LinuxTag was fun too, especially the Social Event. Apparently, the organization wasn't too good last year (for example, there wasn't enough to drink and eat) so they paid a professional catering service this year. This certainly paid off since there was plenty to drink and eat. In fact, there was probably too much; when I wanted to get some more wine, they asked if I wanted a glass or a bottle... I spent the evening talking to Dogi, eventually staggering back in the middle of the night. On Friday and Saturday, I listened to workshops on quality assurance in the OpenOffice.org project and IssueZilla which were both very interesting. During the conference, various people put stuff on my head and took photos. Scary how easily things get out of control...