🦦 NixOS 23.05 — Release Schedule

[RaitoBezarius]

Hi, we are Ryan Lahfa & Martin Weinelt, the release managers for NixOS 23.05 🦦 ("Stoat").

I also have the joy to work with Lennart Mühlenmeier and Winter who will be release editors for this NixOS 🦦 release.

Below you can find the release calendar for the next two months running up to the planned release at the end of May 2023. If something feels unclear to you, don't hesitate to reach out, we are here to guide the process and make sure this will be a satisfying release for all of us.

Stay tuned for updates!

	Date	Affects	Events
✔️	2023-04-03	—	Start discussion about "Feature Freeze & Release Blockers" with ecosystem maintainers
✔️	2023-04-17	all branches	Restrict breaking changes to Release Critical Packages
✔️	2023-05-01	all branches	Restrict all breaking changes with the exception of desktop environments
✔️	2023-05-08	master	Wait for staging-next merge into master; begin first staging-next cycle
		master	Begin Zero Hydra Failures campaign
✔️	2023-05-15	master	Wait for first staging-next merge into master; begin second staging-next cycle
		staging	Unrestrict all breaking changes; new changes will not be present in the release
✔️	2023-05-22	master	Wait for second staging-next merge into master
		staging-next	Unrestrict all breaking changes; new changes will not be present in the release
		master	Mark failing packages as broken
		master, release-23.05	Branch-off
		master, release-23.05	Tag 23.05-beta on release-23.05 and 23.05-unstable on master
		master, release-23.05	Create release channels
		master, release-23.05	ZHF fixes go into master and need to be backported to release-23.05
		release-23.05	Prepare for release, finish remaining issues
✔️	2023-05-31	release-23.05	Release! Also, ZHF ends
	2022-06-10	—	Release Retrospective, everyone is invited to give feedback!

---

Definitions

• Backport
  • Cherry-picking a change from master into release-23.05
  • Use the backport action by applying the backport: release-23.05 tag
• Breaking change
  • A change that is likely to break downstream consumers
• Ecosystem maintainers
  • Maintainer teams that have enabled enableFeatureFreezePing in maintainers/team-list.nix
• Release Critical Packages
  • List of packages that usually cause widespread breakages
• Restriction
  • Changes of the mentioned kind cannot be merged while the restriction is active
• ZHF
  • Zero Hydra Failures
  • Period in which contributors focus on stabilizing packages
  • Usually through PRs targeted at the master branch

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/lets-have-a-great-23-05-release-cycle/26795/1

[NobbZ]

May I ask once again for a public iCal or Google-Calender or similar where the schedules milestones will be available? This should be reused for each release, such that after following the calender once, I should see the milestones for all events in my main calendar.

This are important milestones, that shouldn't be hidden in some always changing GH issue.

This issue or a post at the discourse (which I miss as well, this time and the last) are a nice addition to the calendar, though shouldn't be the primary means of publication (in my opinion).

[mweinelt]

Breaking changes are now restricted, with the exception of desktop environments, to guarantee their stabilization can take place.

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/lets-have-a-great-23-05-release-cycle/26795/24

[RaitoBezarius]

NixOS 23.05 has been completely released: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-23-05-released/28649 !