Introduction

The release team is delegated authority by the Debian Project Leader to oversee and manage the releases of the testing, stable, and oldstable suites.

Audience

This handbook is aimed at readers who wish to know more about how the Release Team is structured, how members go about their daily work and the processes by which it achieves its objectives. It also functions as a procedural reference for team members.

Objectives

The release team’s primary objectives, as described in the delegation, are:

• to decide on the release schedule (e.g.; freeze date, release date for stable releases and point-releases for stable and oldstable)
• to define the content of the suites listed above, that is:
  • to define the packages that are part of those suites
  • to define the ports (architectures) that are part of those suites,
• to decide on the codenames for stable releases.
• to co-ordinate the work on the release notes, and have the final say on their content

Release Team members also have the final say on the official material for each release (e.g., they decide which CD images are official ones).

This handbook is a guide to the tools, processes and approaches for achieving these goals.

Who’s Who

The release team consists of three principal groups.

Release Managers

Release Managers are nominated internally and generally oversee development of the next stable release. Following release, Release Managers are not automatically expected to move to stable release management, but the event is often a good opportunity to do so for team members who wish to reduce their time commitment.

Stable Release Managers

Stable Release Managers are also known as SRMs, and oversee maintenance of supported releases (usually stable and oldstable).

Release Assistants

Release Assistants are expected to assist both Release Managers and, from time to time as required, SRMs.