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Luca Milanesio4dc47162020-09-02 14:54:08 +01001---
2title: "Release Plan for Gerrit 3.3"
3tags: news
4keywords: news
5permalink: 2020-09-07-gerrit-3.3-release-plan.html
6summary: "Release Plan for Gerrit 3.3"
7hide_sidebar: true
8hide_navtoggle: true
9toc: true
10---
11
12## High Level Release Plan
13
14| Date | Activity |
15|-----------|----------------------------------------------------|
16| Oct 5 | Set language level to Java 11 on master |
17| Oct 6 | Create stable-3.3 branch, Release '3.3.0-rc0' |
18| Oct 12 | Release `3.3.0-rc1` |
19| Oct 19 | Release `3.3.0-rc2` |
20| Oct 26 | Release `3.3.0-rc3` |
21| Nov 2 | Release `3.3.0-rc4` |
Luca Milanesiod7877c62020-11-03 17:08:06 +000022| Nov 2-6 | Extra E2E testing week |
23| Nov 9 | Release `3.3.0-rc5` |
24| Nov 9-13 | "Release week" (see below) |
Luca Milanesio74ec0392020-11-16 13:15:58 +000025| Nov 16 | Release `3.3.0-rc6` |
Edwin Kempind3b0ab12023-06-20 08:02:45 +000026| Nov 23-27 | Fix of the P0 [Issue 40013013](https://issues.gerritcodereview.com/issues/40013013) |
Luca Milanesio4da0ea02020-11-23 23:30:01 +000027| Nov 24 | Release `3.3.0-rc7` |
28| Nov 30 | Final release of `3.3.0` |
Luca Milanesio4dc47162020-09-02 14:54:08 +010029
30## Change Acceptance Policy for the Stable Branch
31
32We don't expect that all ongoing feature development will be completed before
33the stable branch is created, so we will allow the completion of existing features
34on the stable branch to bring features to completion *until `rc3`*.
35
36The development of new features is strongly discouraged on the stable branch
37as it may compromise the stability of the release.
38
39After `rc3` only bug fixes will be accepted on the stable branch.
40
41We would prefer that bug fixes are pushed for review directly onto the stable
42branch, rather than onto master to be cherry-picked back. The reason for this
43is to avoid that the release managers need to spend time manually checking
44which changes need to be backported, which could result in changes being
45overlooked.
46
47## "Release Week"
48
49The continued emergency with the global outbreak of COVID-19 has caused the
50cancellation of the Gerrit User Summit 2020, where we typically had managed
51the release with the cooperation of all the maintainers.
52
53We will ask the community members to allocate some of their time during the
Luca Milanesiod7877c62020-11-03 17:08:06 +000054"release week" (9-13 Nov) to help with finalizing the release:
Luca Milanesio4dc47162020-09-02 14:54:08 +010055
56- test the release candidates
57- report issues
58- triage and troubleshoot incoming bug reports
59- make fixes
60- do code reviews
61- test the latest head of the stable branch
62
63To expedite reviews of Library-Compliance and frontend changes, we will ask
64Google to make some members available, and we will also ask Matthias Sohn or
65anyone else from the JGit community to be available to help with JGit related
66issues.
67
68We have set up a dedicated channel on Slack
69([`#gerrit-33-release`](https://gerritcodereview.slack.com/archives/C01AB8FANQ1))
70where these activities will be coordinated. It is yet to be confirmed if we will
71set up any kind of video or voice conferences.
72
73## End-to-end Testing
74
75We plan to use the
76[Gatling e2e test framework for Git](https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/Documentation/dev-e2e-tests.html),
77developed by GerritForge and Ericsson, to test the stability of the release on a production-like
78setup on AWS automatically provisioned using the [aws-gerrit](https://gerrit.googlesource.com/aws-gerrit)
79templates.
80
81[GerritForge](https://www.gerritforge.com) has also offered its own AWS infrastructure to test the
82scalability of Gerrit v3.3, particularly with medium to large sized projects.
83
84## End of Life for Gerrit 3.0.x
85
86Per the support policy mentioned on the
87[project homepage](https://www.gerritcodereview.com/support.html#supported-versions),
88after 3.3.0 is released 3.0.x will reach end of life and will no longer be
89actively supported.
90
91Support for 3.2.x and 3.1.x will continue as usual, 2.16.x may have additional ad-hoc
92releases for issues related to the migration to NoteDb.
93Users of 3.0.x or earlier are recommended to upgrade to one of these versions.
94
95## Java
96
97### Java 11 official language level
98
99Gerrit v3.3.x official releases will have Java 11 language level, this means
100that the officially released gerrit.war won't start on Java 8.
101
102### Java 8 compatibility
103
104__NOTE:This will be the last version with a Java 8 compatible code-base!__
105
106Although the official releases will be with Java 11 language level the
107code-base of stable-3.3 will be validated against both Java 8 and Java 11,
108thus it will still be possible to build stable-3.3 with Java 8.
109
110We are aware that a number of companies still rely on Java 8, we have
111therefore opted to keep the code-base of stable-3.3 Java 8 compatible.
112However, we are planning to, at some time prior to the release of v3.4, drop Java 8
113compatibility on the master branch.