Yes, I’m getting ahead of myself a little.  The Fedora 11 beta was just released, but if you are already working on something for Fedora 12 that doesn’t mean you can’t tell the world about it now using the Fedora Feature process.  We re-vamped the process almost a year ago to make it possible for FESCo to review and accept features for releases beyond the release currently under development.  If you are navigating this process for the first time and are not quite sure what to do feel free to contact me.

Several weeks ago I also  proposed a schedule for Fedora 12.  The Fedora schedule process consists of a schedule proposed by the Release Engineering team which is reviewed and approved by FESCo.  I’ve filed a ticket to track this task in Release Engineering, but naturally they’ve been busy getting ready for the Fedora 11 beta.

Some people are probably thinking it is way too early to be thinking about the Fedora 12 schedule and that we should wait and see what happens with Fedora 11.  I’d like to think that our processes are mature enough now and our schedules built in a predictable enough fashion that we don’t have to focus solely on the release at hand.  One of the goals for Fedora 11 was to have a full six month release schedule followed by a return to the established “Halloween/May Day” schedule (releasing every six months on or near October 31st and May 1st) for Fedora 12.  I think it is important to start thinking about and planning for this shorter release.

Obviously the Fedora 12 schedule is a draft, but I think it is a solid proposal for completing Fedora 12 in five months.  This isn’t the first time we have attempted a five month release.  Fedora 8 was completed in five months to get us on the original “Halloween/May Day” schedule.  The development time frame is shorter in this proposed schedule, but the testing durations and freeze periods we’ve found to work well remain the same.  This results in a proposed Fedora 12 GA date of 2009-10-27.

September 18, 2009—Updated information on Fedora 12