launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Graham Binns <graham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 10:04:41AM -0600, Joey Stanford wrote:
> Works for me.
> 
> There is a doc already describing the tasks...

Julian raises a good point though. The key to a good release manager
isn't just that they're able to follow the guidelines for a standard
trouble-free release, it's that they're also capable of handling matters
when everything goes wrong. Last release wasn't exactly all fun and
games, but because Bjorn is an old hand at Launchpad and dealing with
its troubles he was able to handle it. Someone less experienced might
have struggled. We have an excellent team of LOSAs who can help and can
give guidance, but the RM is the guy at the sharp end (assuming that one
of Kiko, Francis or Bjorn isn't around) and needs to be able to make
decisions without worrying about everything buggering up.

So, if we're going to do this, we need:

 - A fallback process for when things go wrong. This could be as simple
   as saying "the backup RM for this release is (Francis|Kiko)."
 - A "definition of critical policy" for releases - i.e. what kind of
   brokenness constitutes a Big Red Button issue, etc.

I also agree with Julian that it would probably be better to have
release managers stay in the job for a few cycles to gain experience.
They can then act as backup for the next RM and so on.

-- 
Graham Binns | PGP Key: EC66FA7D