Beta releases and Product Management G.Cosmo - Beta releases and Product Management October 9th, 2002 Beta releases and Product Management Gabriele Cosmo (CERN/IT-API) Geant4 delta-review

G.Cosmo - Beta releases and Product Management October 9th, 2002 Outline Addressing recommendation #4.2: “ We recommend the adoption of more frequent, though not necessarily fully tested, “beta” releases that address important blocking problems. They should be available to all users. These “beta” releases are in addition to having a stable and working version of the program at any time, with a documentation of all known bugs or deficiencies in that particular version ” and recommendation #4.3: “ We recommend defining and managing the complete product tree, including documentation as well as the code, as part of a release. If the documentation is not ready, the release cannot be deemed to be ready ” Policy for “development releases” defined since 1998 Reviewed policy for “public stable” releases to include as product deliverables: update of user documentation and schedules Regular monthly development releases (with release-notes) since July 2000 “Beta” development releases source publicly distributed since August 2002 October 9th, 2002 Geant4 delta-review - G.Cosmo, Beta releases and Product Management Geant4 delta-review

Release policy (development) Published on the Web: http://cern.ch/geant4/working_groups/testing/tag_release_policy.html Development releases coincide with “reference development tags” Include new developments and bug-fixes Include detailed release-notes organized per Category domain Available to Collaboration and locally installed Provided on a regular monthly basis since July 2000 Frequency dictated by on-going development October 9th, 2002 Geant4 delta-review - G.Cosmo, Beta releases and Product Management

Release policy (stable releases) Scheduled stable releases twice a year Defined major or minor according to development and available bug-fixes Interface changes only allowed in major releases Public patches distributed according to need and severity of bug-fixes 3 public patches distributed in 2002 so far Update of documentation tree (user manuals and design documents) required and synchronized Global context Q/A checks required and performed October 9th, 2002 Geant4 delta-review - G.Cosmo, Beta releases and Product Management

Distribution of “Beta” source code “Beta” source code made available every two months from Web Registration of users as “Beta” testers required (automatic registration to a dedicated mailing list) 30 users registered so far since August 30th “Beta” source code based on reference development tags Providing exclusion of development code subject to publication rights by the authors Detailed release notes part of the distribution October 9th, 2002 Geant4 delta-review - G.Cosmo, Beta releases and Product Management

Geant4 delta-review - G.Cosmo, Beta releases and Product Management Conclusions Policy for “development releases” defined and reviewed For “public stable” releases to include update of user documentation and schedules For “development” releases to provide regularly every month “Beta” development releases source now publicly distributed Next step: Enhance process of creation of release-notes to include a comprehensive description of known outstanding bugs and limitations October 9th, 2002 Geant4 delta-review - G.Cosmo, Beta releases and Product Management