Mozilla released Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 on Wednesday 14-nov-2007, at 5.10pm PST.
From “Dev says code ready to release” to “release is now available to public” was 15 days 22.5 hours wall-clock time, of which the Beta period took 6 days 8 hours, and Build&Release took just over 2.5 days (62.5 hours).
17:30 30oct: Dev say go
09:40 31oct: mac builds handed to QA
10:00 31oct: linux builds handed to QA
17:55 31oct: win32 signed builds handed to QA
06:50 02nov: update snippets available on betatest update channel
14:30 06nov: QA says “go” for Beta
16:10 06nov: update snippets available on beta update channel
00:30 13nov: Dev & QA says “go” for Release; Build starts final signing, bouncer entries
08:25 13nov: final signing, bouncer entries done; mirror replication started
09:40 13nov: Build announced enough mirror coverage for QA to use releasetest channel
12:40 13nov: win32 installer bug#403670 discovered
14:00 13nov: declare bug#403670 as showstopper, put TB2.0.0.9 on hold.
18:20 13nov: root cause and fix of bug#403670 found.
05:05 14nov: one rebuilt win32 installer handed to QA to verify bugfix
05:40 14nov: QA confirmed new win32 installer is ok.
08:30 14nov: all rebuilt win32 installers handed to QA
10:10 14nov: QA signoff on rebuilt win32 installers, mirror replication started
15:00 14nov: mirror replication confirmed complete on new win32 installers
16:00 14nov: update snippets available on release update channel (for end users)
17:10 14nov: release announced
1) This was not a “human free” release. The automation work done for FF2.0.0.9 has not been tested for TB2.0.0.9. In theory it should work just fine, but we just havent had time to test it, so we chose to play safe and do this release manually. Hence this took more time for Build to produce. All of that time was manually intensive Build work.
2) bug#403670 was caused by a combination of factors. One factor was human error, I incorrectly setup a workarea on a signing machine, the same incorrect setup works fine for Firefox releases; the signing doc has now been updated. The other factor was a long-standing-but-previously-unknown error handling problem in one of our signing scripts, how to fix this is being debated within the Build team. Note: this problem was with the windows installer only, not with any Thunderbird code, and not the linux/mac installers. Overall, this delayed the release by approx 22hours.
3) Mirror absorption times were messed up by the stop-and-restart caused by bug#403670.
4) The daylight savings PST change happened during this release, giving us an extra hour. That is counted in the overall times above.
take care
John