The X.Org Foundation X11R6.9/X11R7.0 Release Plan
Overview
The X.Org Foundation is preparing a new release of the X Window System. This document covers the basic information about the release, including the new features, tasks, schedule, success criteria, next release and open questions. As the release progresses, this page and the status page (see below) will be updated with the latest release information.
The bugzilla entry for this release is here.
The release managers for this release are:
- Kevin E. Martin — Overall release manager
- Alan Coopersmith — X11R6.9 release manager
- Adam Jackson — X11R7.0 release manager
New Features
Please see this page for details about what has been added or updated in these releases.
Note that the X11R6.9 and X11R7 releases will include identical source code, but will have different source code organization and build systems. The X11R6.9 release will continue to use the traditional monolithic source tree organization and imake build system. The X11R7 release will use a new modular source tree organization and autotools build system. For details on modularization, please read the ModularizationProposal.
Schedule
- 4 Jul 2005: Feature freeze for the monolithic source tree
- 1 Aug 2005: RC0 (Release Candidate 0)
- 18 Oct 2005: RC1 (Full release candidate)
- 9 Nov 2005: RC2 (Code Freeze)
- 2 Dec 2005: RC3
- 12 Dec 2005: Copy ,v files from monolithic to modular tree
- 14 Dec 2005: Finalize tree (only documentation changes allowed)
- 21 Dec 2005: X11R6.9/X11R7 Release
Tasks
Now that we've finished the final release candidate (RC4), we are in the process of updating the release documentation. If you have any documentation changes, please file bugs against the release bug and attach patches with the changes. If you get your patches in by Monday, 19 Dec 2005, we will be able to include your documentation update in the release.
Building the release
For the monolithic tree, the traditional make World will build the release and make install will install it.
For the modular tree, there are several ways to build the release:
- See the ModularDevelopersGuide to build from CVS.
- See the JhBuildInstructions to build using jhbuild (from both CVS and from the RC tarballs)
- To build from a set of downloaded RC tarballs, you can use the build-from-tarballs.sh script to build the RC.
If you have specific questions about how to build either the monolithic or modular release using one of these methods, please ask on the xorg@lists.freedesktop.org mailing list.
Success Criteria and Testing
For these releases to be successful, we need to meet the following success criteria:
- Build tested on target platforms
- Install tested on target platforms
- Run tested on target platforms
- Passed test suite on target platforms
- Passed OpenGL/Mesa/Glean tests on target 3D platforms
Details of the test plan can be found on the testing page.
Next release
The plan is to have a 7.1 release within 6 months of the 7.0 release. We will finalize the 7.1 development/release schedule immediately following the 7.0 release. Everyone will have the opportunity to add support for their platform during the 7.0 release cycle (as described above), but this schedule might not be convenient for all developers. Platforms that are not supported by the modular tree in 7.0 can be added to 7.1. Our goal is to have releases every 6 months.
See ChangesForX11R71, for the list of proposed features for X11R7.1.