[tbb-dev] Moving non-mobile platforms over to the rapid release train

[Matthew Finkel]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 01:42:39PM +0000, Matthew Finkel wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 08:05:57PM +0000, Georg Koppen wrote:
> > Hello everyone!
> > 
> > We have been working the last few months on getting mobile Tor Browser
> > hooked into the rapid release train, away from the ESR series. It's been
> > exciting all around. We are close to releasing a first stable mobile
> > release and are getting used to the process of frequently updating
> > toolchains, different patch sets, and auditing new code. It's time for
> > looking forward and thinking about desktop Tor Browser.
> > 
> > Getting desktop To Browser onto the rapid release train at the same time
> > while maintaining the mobile part + having additional sponsor work on
> > our plate is very likely too much for our 2 1/2 current browser devs.
> > So, we originally thought about postponing that until we have more
> > capacity. But maybe we can be smarter.
> > 
> > It's not desktop vs. mobile but more that we have 4 different platforms
> > we support and the first one, Android, made it onto the rapid release
> > train. What if we moved the others platform by platform to test how hard
> > it is and just move forward if we are confident we can handle the workload?
> > 
> > I'd propose we start with Linux on the non-ESR train next and soon. That
> > means switching Linux nightlies, or if we are confident, even Linux
> > alphas, too, off ESR.
> 
> I agree this isn't a very crazy idea. We should have the goal that every
> platform we move onto rapid release has a sufficient "test plan" (and is
> sufficiently tested) before we begin moving the next platform. We should
> finish adding Fenix into our testsuite [0] and we should create a plan
> for automatic rebasing and monitoring [1] for failures. I don't want to
> transition more platforms until we have a solid foundation. When this
> structure is in place, and the additional maintenance cost is low, I
> think this plan of moving one-platform-at-a-time is a good idea and I
> think we can move Nightly Linux onto FF85 or 86 within the next few
> months. (Linux does have the advantage that it already has some test
> coverage, so the delay is really due to getting Fenix up-to-speed, but
> I'd like to see regular results from running the Firefox tests [2], as
> well.)

Last week, I sketched a rough release schedule on the wiki [3]. It
obviously needs updating already, but it's a starting point.

[3] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/wikis/Release-Schedule