NetworkTeam/ReleasePolicy.md

+# Release Policy
+
+
+
+This policy is a draft: we haven't decided when we will try it out.
+
+See the [[backport process](./org/teams/NetworkTeam/Backports|)] for how we handle backport tickets.
+
+## Current Process
+
+At the moment, here's how we do releases:
+• If we have an active alpha series, put out an alpha every few weeks.
+• Put out a stable release every 1-2 months.
+• Put out oldstable and LTS releases as needed.
+
+https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/meetings/2019BrusselsNetworkTeam/Notes/StableMaintainer#CurrentProcess
+
+## Potential Changes
+
+### Regular Release Dates
+
+Do we want to schedule our stable releases on set dates?
+
+Here's one possible schedule:
+* alpha release: every 2 weeks, on a Wednesday
+  * we expect alpha releases to be more irregular: we only do them as needed
+* early in the stable release: check if a new release is needed, every 4 weeks, on a Wednesday
+* maintenance releases: as needed, but usually at the same time as a stable or alpha release
+  * includes oldstable and LTS releases
+
+I chose Wednesday because it's the middle of the week. Friday failures can lead to weekend work, and some people's Mondays and Fridays overlap with other people's weekends.
+
+Suggested policies:
+* we don't do oldstable and LTS releases, unless there is an important, user-visible change
+* we can skip a release if the changes are trivial (or there are no changes)
+  * trivial changes are any change that users won't notice, or won't want to upgrade if they knew about it
+  * if a change doesn't need a separate reviewer, it's probably a trivial change
+* we can do a release early for urgent fixes. After an urgent fix, we reschedule future releases every 2-4 weeks from that date
+* we can reschedule releases if people are on leave
+
+### Mini-Freezes
+
+We will declare a soft freeze for some amount of time before each stable release date, and say that nothing inessential gets backported in that time.
+
+Freezes will start on the previous Wednesday.
+
+If we discover urgent fixes, we should delay the release another week, so the new fixes get some nightly testing.
+
+Alpha releases don't have mini-freezes, but we should avoid merging any major changes in the day or two before the release.
+
+### Transitioning between Early Stable and Maintenance
+
+Every 4 weeks, we check if we need to do an early stable release.
+If we go 8 weeks without doing an early stable release, we transition
+that stable release to the stable maintainers.
+
+That is, if a stable release series requires lots of urgent patches,
+we keep it with the master maintainers until those bugs are fixed.
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