launchpad-users team mailing list archive

[Curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Linking project releases in Launchpad to milestones
----------------------------------------------------

In our 2.2.3 release of Launchpad -- due 1st of April -- we're
strengthening the relationship between milestones and releases.

Project releases will be explicitly linked to a milestone, meaning the
release inherits the milestone's series and identity information.

You'll be able to create a new release from a milestone page or, if you
don't yet have a milestone, there'll be an option to create a release
and its parent milestone simultaneously. You can still have milestones
that do not correspond to releases.

Just as now, the release will hold the release notes, changelog, date
released, and any downloadable files.


What are Releases, Milestones, and Series?
------------------------------------------

Launchpad hosted projects can arrange their development into Series,
which contain Milestones to which bugs can be targeted, and Releases
which hold download tarballs and have release notes.  Although
Milestones and Releases go together, they were previously managed
separately in Launchpad.  Now they're more unified.


Why are we doing this?
-----------------------

Many people already use releases and milestones in this way. Milestones
aid release planning, and help people understand a project's goals.
Creating a release directly from a milestone implies that the milestone
was reached.

Linking milestones to releases improves the data consistency between
projects. With good milestone and release information, Launchpad can
improve the presentation of series to explain what has happened, and
what will happen. We hope that this will make it easier for people to
know where and when to make contributions to your project.

This change also allows us to redesign the series, milestone, and
release pages. Our goal is to better present the history and future
of a project, as well as to improve the workflow for planners.


What you can do
----------------

You do not need to take any action regarding releases. We're migrating
existing releases by linking them to a milestone, or if there isn't an
appropriate milestone, creating a new one.

You can use Launchpad's staging environment --
https://staging.launchpad.net/ -- right now to check what your releases
and milestones will look like under the new system.

We'd value your feedback so we can improve the data migration script. If
you come across a problem, please report a bug here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad

For other comments, send us an email to feedback@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


How we're making the migration
-------------------------------

The release's project, project series, version, code name, and summary
come from the milestone it's linked to. The release's version will come
from the milestone's name.

When a release and a milestone share the same series and version/name,
they are linked. The release's summary will be appended to the
milestone's summary. You should review your project's milestones. You
can make changes to your project's milestones and releases on
launchpad.net to ensure they are merged correctly on
staging.launchpad.net before the final migration.

When no milestone can be matched to a release, a new milestones is
created from the release's information. The milestone is not active,
they will only appear on the project's milestone page. There are a few
instances where two series have a release of the same name. Milestone
names are unique across a project. So the milestone's name will contain
the release's version and series name (0.9-series-trunk). You can
prevent this from happening by renaming some of your project's releases
on launchpad.net now -- in most cases, the duplicate release name is on
an obsolete series, or trunk. You can view all your projects series at:
https://launchpad.net/<your-project>/+series

We're also taking the opportunity to rename a couple of things:
"description" becomes "summary" and the milestone's visibility flag
(in the REST API) is renamed to "active".

We believe this change will make releases and milestones much more
useful. Please do report bugs or email us if you have any comments.
-- 
__Curtis C. Hovey_________
http://launchpad.net/

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