Notes from today's Release Meeting(s)

[Michael Stone]

1. We're going to begin nominating this week's 'joyride-weekly' tomorrow at
0900 EDT. If you have risky changes you want to contribute, please provide them
_after_ we deliver our nomination. If you want to help more peoples' changes
make the deadline, then please help smoke-test joyrides built close to the
deadline. Please record your results on

   http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Test_Group_Release_Notes

and file bugs liberally. When we deliver the build nomination, we will
summarize the currently available testing notes in the announcement mail.

2. This week, we will submit the nomination announcement in the following
venues:
   
   devel@,
   testing@,
   support-gang@,
   the 1cc whiteboard,
   OLPCNews,
   forum.laptop.org,
   and locations on the wiki TBD
      - the front page "Latest releases" box
      - the test group release notes page

In addition to a summary of current testing notes, the announcement will
include a pointer to testing instructions. (Feel free to help write testing
instructions if you've ever been frustrated with the current ones.)

3. We would be really happy if we felt comfortable entering code freeze (a.k.a.
package-level change control) next Wednesday. We will make this decision in our
Tuesday release meeting. Our fine colleagues in QA have agreed to assist us in
making this decision by smoke-testing one fresh joyride per day.

4. In preparation for the full-blown regression tests that we will run in
coming weeks, it would be very helpful if we received more detailed
package-level ChangeLog entries and if we did better job of displaying the
ChangeLog and related-tickets data that we currently have available.

(In addition, anyone who further improves Reinier's, Bert's, and Marco's
announcer scripts will earn a drink or treat from me.)

5. Separately, I wish we were receiving even more volunteer testing. Can you
help out? Fame, glory, and the undying gratitude of hundreds of thousands of
children await you!

6. We need to begin settling on an activity pack to use for testing purposes.
Suggestions on peaceful ways to identify the contents of this activity pack
would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael