[ANNOUNCEMENT] Schedule for Xen 3.0.4

[Keir Fraser <keir@xensource.com>]

Folks,

The xen-unstable tree has seen significant progress since 3.0.3 was forked,
particularly in HVM cleanup and bug fixing. SMP and ACPI HVM guests now work
reliably, as does the Windows Vista installer. Many of these improvements
are the result of large patches and interface cleanups that are unsuitable
for backporting to 3.0.3. Since we'd like to make these improvements
available to Xen users as soon as possible, now seems a good time to call a
feature freeze in preparation for 3.0.4.

I propose the following schedule: At the end of November we declare the
feature freeze. We'd like to get in some more patchsets before this cutoff
-- in particular the kexec/kdump patches and the paravirtual framebuffer
support. Following this, and depending on good testing results, we tag
release candidates for 3.0.4 once or twice a week until we have a tree
suitable for final release (hopefully by the middle of December). Meanwhile
we focus on any lurking performance and correctness bugs that have been
introduced during the recent spike in check-in activity.

These plans are part of a more general move to more frequent Xen releases.
By shortening the development phase of our release cycle we can keep tighter
tabs on the status of the Xen tree, resulting in better prediction of
release dates and faster release of new features and enhancements to the Xen
user community!

 Cheers,
 Keir (and the Xen team)