21.05 Call for Release Manager
Hello again, with 20.09 and the retrospective complete, development on unstable never stops here in NixOS.
We will be needing a new release manager for 21.05 and 21.11 release; you will need to work in co-operation with NixOS contributors, myself, and Eelco Dolstra. The release process in NixOS is in a time of great change, so this is the perfect moment for someone who really wants to leave their mark.
If you are interested, please get in contact with myself or @worldofpeace.
Contact Info
Freenode Nick | Matrix ID |
---|---|
jonringer | N/A |
worldofpeace | @worldofpeace:matrix.org |
I (@jonringer) am also on the community discord server, if you DM there, I’ll get a notification directly to my phone
Why do we need a release manager? What to expect
Being a release manager in NixOS is not a solitary experience.
There are always two release managers, where each release manager serves
for two consecutive terms/releases. With each new release the previous team gets to
appoint a new manager. (what’s happening right now). This way, you always have the guidance of a release manager who has the experience of releasing NixOS before. See the RFC for more details. As mentioned, releasing NixOS is in a time of change, expect the ability to improve it within our means.
Being a release manager means you will have greater impact to the NixOS community, and develop greater insight into the community as a whole. You can also view this as an opportunity to acquire some project management skills as well.
Expect it to be transformative.
Qualifications
- Commit Access to Nixos/Nixpkgs. Although it’s never been an explicit requirement before, a good portion of the work of a release manager is to review changes going into the release branch. And, some of the release tasks will require you to push directly to the repository.
Responsibilities
Outside of ZHF, the “workload” is minimal, however, the month leading up to the expected release date will have a few periods where you may need to set time aside to complete release management tasks. I will be improving the release documentation to include a time table so the release process is more predictable on someone’s schedule.
In general the responsibilities are:
- Create release roadmap
- Track blocking issues
- Review PRs ( other committers well aide you with this )
- Conduct stabilization (ZHF)
- Perform release management task, listed here
- Coordinate with other release manager about tasks
- You will want to be able to contact the manager on a semi-regular basis.
Related Changes
As mentioned in What should stable NixOS prioritize?, I will attempt to push back the release date to YY.05 and YY.11 through an RFC to help with desktop manager packaging pain. So the 21.03 release may be 21.05.- The release schedule is now 21.05 and 21.11
Impact
Having a stable release goes a long way to allowing commercial adoption of Nixpkgs and NixOS. For the long-term future of NixOS, these releases are crucial to its success.
I hope to hear from all of you.