[Rd] Schedule for R 1.9.0

[Peter Dalgaard]

The process leading up to the release of 1.9.0 is detailed below.
Package maintainers may want to take notice of important dates and
make sure that their packages still work with the alpha/beta releases
or work on making a 1.9.x comaptible version.

As usual, everybody is encouraged to try out the preliminary releases
and report back so that we can get the last wrinkles ironed out before
release.

Mar 7:

    Declare start of release process. The build process is assumed to
    be essentially in place at this time.

    There is a "grand feature" freeze (minor tweaks can be applied,
    but no wholesale restructuring or API changes). Notice that
    wrapping a package in a namespace is a grand feature, and so is
    meddling with the event loop.

    Package maintainers should start adapting to any changes in base.

    Start making R-1.9.0alpha.tgz packages automatically available.

Mar 21:

    Feature freeze, simultaneously on base and recommended packages.
    It is assumed that all recommended packages pass their checks at
    this point. The API should not be touched.

    Start making R-1.9.0beta.tgz packages automatically available.


Mar 28:

    Code freeze. Only critical and/or trivial bugs fixed from this
    time onwards. Configure/make should only be touched in
    emergencies.

Apr 4:

    Release.


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907