Commons Logging 1.1.0 ReleasePlan

Background

This is an important release: JCL is very widely used in production but a combination of new specifications and widespread failures from vendors to adhere to the Java 2 classloading model have resulted in majors problems for the JCL 1.0.x series of releases.

Thanks to constructive criticism from Ceki Guici and new energy from new developers, changes have been made to the discovery model used by JCL. The current codebase is now more specification adnostic: it no longer insists on complience with the classloader models introduced in Java 1.2 and in the servlet specification. It is believed by the team that the current codebase should solve those problems which can be solved given the deisgn approach taken by JCL.

Status

Preparations for Alpha 1

Release Process

Most commons components use a release that uses multiple release candidates. Once the release is up to the technical standards required for Jakarta Commons releases, it is approved and released.

JCL 1.1.0 is an important release. Not only is JCL very widely used but the limitations of the 1.0.x series of releases has been widely reported. It is important that the 1.1 release not only resolves these problems but also does not introduce any new ones. It is tricky to unit test situations invovling exotic classloaders.

I'd therefore like to propose the following additions to the process. Release candidates will be produced as normal until one satisfies the standards required for commons releases. At that stage, though, the release will be dubbed commons-logging-1.1-alpha1. An announcement will be made requesting that users, developers and committers test this release. If there are no problems then a subsequent VOTE will be held to promote this release.

The release will be recut each time but no code modifications will be made without resetting the process.

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Pre-Release Tasks

Anyone who wants to volunteer for a task, just add something

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