releases/doc/source/caracal/schedule.rst

2024.1 Caracal Release Schedule

Note

Deadlines are generally the Thursday of the week on which they are noted below. Exceptions to this policy will be explicitly mentioned in the event description.

October 5, 2023 - April 3, 2024 (26 weeks)

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Cross-project events

PTG (virtual)

From October 23 to October 27 we'll have a virtual PTG to plan the Caracal release schedule.

Caracal-1 milestone

November 16, 2023 is the Caracal-1 milestone. See project-specific notes for relevant deadlines.

Bobcat Cycle-Trailing Release Deadline

All projects following the cycle-trailing release model must release their Bobcat deliverables by 7 December, 2023.

Caracal-2 milestone

January 11, 2024 is the Caracal-2 milestone. See project-specific notes for relevant deadlines.

Membership Freeze

Projects must participate in at least two milestones in order to be considered part of the release. Projects made official after the second milestone, or which fail to produce milestone releases for at least one of the first and second milestones as well as the third milestone, are therefore not considered part of the release for the cycle. This does not apply to cycle-trailing packaging / lifecycle management projects.

Extra-AC freeze

All contributions to OpenStack are valuable, but some are not expressed as Gerrit code changes. That allow teams to list active contributors to their projects and who do not have a code contribution this cycle, and therefore won't automatically be considered an Active Contributor and allowed to vote. This is done by adding extra-acs to https://opendev.org/openstack/governance/src/branch/master/reference/projects.yaml before the Extra-AC freeze date.

Final release for non-client libraries

Libraries that are not client libraries (Oslo and others) should issue their final release during this week. That allows to give time for last-minute changes before feature freeze.

Caracal-3 milestone

February 29, 2024 is the Caracal-3 milestone. See project-specific notes for relevant deadlines.

Feature freeze

The Caracal-3 milestone marks feature freeze for projects following the release:cycle-with-rc model. No featureful patch should be landed after this point. Exceptions may be granted by the project PTL.

Final release for client libraries

Client libraries should issue their final release during this week, to match feature freeze.

Soft StringFreeze

You are no longer allowed to accept proposed changes containing modifications in user-facing strings. Such changes should be rejected by the review team and postponed until the next series development opens (which should happen when RC1 is published).

Requirements freeze

After the Caracal-3 milestone, only critical requirements and constraints changes will be allowed. Freezing our requirements list gives packagers downstream an opportunity to catch up and prepare packages for everything necessary for distributions of the upcoming release. The requirements remain frozen until the stable branches are created, with the release candidates.

RC1 target week

The week of March 11, 2024 is the target date for projects following the release:cycle-with-rc model to issue their first release candidate.

Hard StringFreeze

This happens when the RC1 for the project is tagged. At this point, ideally no strings are changed (or added, or removed), to give translators time to finish up their efforts.

Final RCs and intermediary releases

The week of March 25, 2024 is the last week to issue release candidates or intermediary releases before release week. During release week, only final-release-critical releases will be accepted (at the discretion of the release team).

Caracal release

The Caracal coordinated release will happen on Wednesday, April 3, 2024.

Cycle Highlights

Cycle highlights need to be added to the release deliverables after the feature freeze to be included in any marketing release messaging. Highlights may be added after this point, but they will likely only be useful for historical purposes.

See the Project Team Guide for more details and instructions on adding these highlights.

For examples of previous release highlights: Stein Highlights, Train Highlights, Ussuri Highlights, Victoria Highlights, Wallaby Highlights, Xena Highlights, Yoga Highlights, Zed Highlights.

Project-specific events

Oslo

Oslo Feature Freeze

All new Oslo features must be proposed and substantially complete, with unit tests by the end of the week.

Cinder

Cinder Mid Cycle PTG - 1

We will be conducting a mid-cycle PTG on 6th December, 2023 (Wednesday) which is a continuation of 2024.1 Caracal PTG to track progress and discuss new topics in a similar manner as of PTG.

Wednesday 6th December 2023 (1400-1600 UTC).

Cinder Spec Freeze

All Cinder Specs for features to be implemented in 2024.1 Caracal must be approved by Friday 22 December 2022 (23:59 UTC).

Cinder New Driver Merge Deadline

The deadline for merging a new backend driver to Cinder for the 2024.1 Caracal release is Friday 26 January 2024 (20:00 UTC). New drivers must be (a) code complete including unit tests, (b) merged into the code repository, and (c) must have a 3rd Party CI running reliably. (Note that because of where some holidays fall this cycle, this is later than the usual Milestone-2 deadline.)

Cinder New Target Driver Merge Deadline

The deadline for merging a new target driver to Cinder for the 2024.1 Caracal release is Friday 26 January 2024 (20:00 UTC). New target drivers must be (a) code complete including unit tests, (b) merged into the code repository, and (c) must have a 3rd Party CI running reliably.

Cinder New Feature Status Checkpoint

If your new Cinder feature requires client support, keep in mind that the final release for client libraries is in four weeks. Thus your Cinder feature should be substantially complete with unit tests by this time so that any client changes can be reviewed, tested, and merged before 01 March 2024.

Cinder Driver Features Declaration

New features added to Cinder drivers must be merged at the time of the OpenStack-wide Feature Freeze, which is coming up in two weeks. Before the Cinder meeting this week, you should post a blueprint in Launchpad listing the Gerrit reviews of features you'd like to land in 2024.1 Caracal. (You can look among the 2023.1 and 2023.2 blueprints for examples; contact the PTL if you have any questions.) This will help the team prioritize reviews and give you candid early feedback on whether the features look ready.

Cinder Mid Cycle PTG - 2

We will be conducting Midcycle-2 PTG on 14th February, 2024 (Wednesday) which is a continuation of 2024.1 Caracal Midcycle-1 PTG to track progress and discuss new topics in a similar manner as of Midcycle-1 PTG.

Wednesday 14th February 2024 (1400-1600 UTC).

Cinder 3rd Party CI Compliance Checkpoint

This is a reminder that in order for a Cinder driver to be considered 'supported' in the 2024.1 Caracal release, its third party CI must be running properly when the Cinder team does a final compliance check around the time of the third milestone. See the Driver Compliance section of the Cinder Documentation for details.

Nova

Nova Spec Review Day

On 7 November 2023 and 5 December 2023, Nova specifications targeting 2024.1 implementation will be prioritized for reviews by the Nova core team.

Nova Spec Freeze

All Nova Specs for features to be implemented in 2024.1 Caracal must be approved by 11 January 2024 (23:59 UTC).

Nova Implementation Review Day

On 15 November 2023 and 10 January 2024, Nova prioritized blueprints and bugfixes with open changes will be reviewed by the Nova core team.

Manila

Manila Spec Freeze

All Manila specs targeted to 2024.1 Caracal must be approved by the end of the week.

Manila New Driver Deadline

By the end of the week all new backend drivers for Manila must be substantially complete, with unit tests, and passing 3rd party CI. Drivers do not have to actually merge until feature freeze.

Manila Feature Proposal Freeze

All new Manila features must be proposed and substantially completed, with unit, functional and integration tests by the end of the week.

Manila Hackathon

Manila community event promoted in order to tackle the implementation of features or tech debt areas.

Manila Bugsquash

Manila community event promoted in order to fast-track the closure of bugs.

2024.2 TC and PTL Elections

2024.2 Election Email Deadline

Contributors that will be in the electorate for the upcoming election should confirm their gerrit email addresses by this date (February 28th, 2024 at 00:00 UTC). Electorate rolls are generated after this date and ballots will be sent to the listed gerrit email address.

2024.2 Election Nomination Begins

Candidates interested in serving for the next calendar year (TC), or development cycle (PTL) should announce their candidacies and platforms during this week. Please see the Election site for specific timing information.

2024.2 Election Campaigning Begins

The electorate has time to ask candidates questions about their platforms and debate topics before polling begins. Please see the Election site for specific timing information.

2024.2 Election Polling Begins

Election polling for open seats on the TC and any required PTL elections. Please see the Election site for specific timing information.

2024.2 Election Polling Ends

All polls close in the 2024.2 Election and results announced. Please see the Election site for specific timing information.