Katya Titov:
It looks like we're struggling to find people to test TBB in a timely manner. I certainly can't find time to test during the regular working week any more (life changes ...).
A suggestion: if it's possible to delay they release, then announce the test versions on a Friday for release on a Monday. This should allow at least a day for testing, taking into account timezones, and may help if others are in my position. Or just announce testing when ready but schedule the release for a Monday.
Scheduling a release for a Monday is tricky as Mozilla is releasing on Tuesdays and we don't want to wait for a new Tor Browser release almost a week as these releases usually fix criticial vulnerabilities in the Firefox code.
That said, we still aim to have at least the upcoming Tor Browser stable in a testable shape on the weekend before the release is going to happen. This did not work out with the last release as this was an out-of-bound one and it might not work as smooth as it should either as uploading the test candidate probably needs to happen on a Saturday (we get the new Firefox sources earliest Wednesday and usually need to have two matching builds before we are confident in announcing the build to test). Still, sounds like a thing to keep in mind especially if it means we get the release candidates exposed to more testers this way.
That being said, it's rare for a new release to be buggy so maybe these tests are not as required as initially thought. And it also means that urgent releases can be confidently rolled out with no or limited testing.