Release Management

Quick Links

• Release Calendar
• The Release Process explained
• Current and Past Releases
• Firefox Merge/Release Calendar
• Release Calendar (Details)

About Release Management

The Release Management team keeps the release process on track for upcoming releases. We focus on release quality, security, and stability. As release managers follow specific features and individual bugs, we work with developers, engineering managers, product managers, UI/UX teams, QE, and release engineering, doing whatever it takes to coordinate the many details in the creation of a new version of Firefox. We aim to get features & fixes landed in time for proper evaluation. Our goal is to ship the most stable & excellent product possible for Firefox Desktop & Mobile for our users.

Contribute

There are many ways to help the release management team. Help with tracked bugs, or hack on the tools our team develops and maintains.

Developers and anyone in the community can help by proposing bugs for tracking, using the tracking flags in bugzilla.mozilla.org.

The relman team maintains several tools. You can help by fixing bugs!

• Our automatic nag tool to send email to Firefox developers about their bugs
• ship-it - interface to start builds of Firefox, Firefox for Android and Thunderbird
• Google Play scripts to upload APK and manage translations

Team info

• Release_Management/Team_members List of release managers, past and present
• Release_Management/Quarterly_Goals for the relman team

Communication Channels

E-mail

• Team distribution list: release-mgmt at mozilla dot com

IRC

• #relman - Release Management specific channel
• #release-drivers - Firefox Desktop and Android release drivers

Twitter

• @MozillaReleases
• Release Coordination Vidyo Link

Meetings

We host and are a part of number of meetings. You can't miss us at channel meetings, where we discuss and try to resolve any release related issues. Anyone working to get a new feature or complicated fix into Firefox may want to join the channel meeting to discuss the process with the entire team of release managers. User advocacy, QE and stability, and release engineering team members also often join the channel meetings.

• Channel Meeting
  • This meeting takes place twice a week on Tuesday at 10 AM PT and Thursday at 10 AM PT in Release Coordination Vidyo Room
  • Channel Meeting Wiki Archive
• Release Sign-offs
  • This meeting happens a week before we are ready to ship at the Thursday Channel Meeting to address any outstanding concerns around the release
  • Release sign-off meeting
• Release Post Mortem
  • This meetings happens at the Tuesday Channel Meeting two weeks after a release
  • Postmortem Schedule & Agenda

Calendar Updating

To add the basic release calendar to your Google calendar:

• Go to your calendar
• In the lower left, choose Other Calendars
• Choose "Interesting Calendars"
• Click the link "More" near the top of the page, by Holidays and Sports
• Click "Resources for mozilla.com"
• Click "Public"
• Choose "Firefox Merge/Release schedule"
• You can also add "Releases Scheduling" here for a more detailed view.

When the release schedule is adjusted for any reason, we need to ensure that https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=mozilla.com_u92lbs8k7tj4a9j4qc231ov3co%40group.calendar.google.com is updated to reflect this. If the calendar itself is updated, there is a link to it on this page (at the top) as well as on RapidRelease/Calendar

Team Resources

Each version of Firefox is followed by a release manager who owns it from start to release. This way, Nightly, Aurora, Beta, ESR, and Release channels have someone dedicated to getting all the pieces put together correctly.

• Release_Management/Release_owners
• Nightly Tasks for relman during Nightly
• Aurora Landing Process What we do during the Aurora cycle
• Beta Release Checklist
  • Excel based checklist: Beta 44 Release Checklist
• ESR Triage
• Publishing to Mobile stores
• Release Days Merge and release day processes
• Point releases and chemspills
• Releng release flow for Beta and Release
• GoFaster release and relnote process

Dashboards

• Aurora, Beta Uplifts Dashboard
• Review important bug fixes landed in Nightly for uplift to Aurora, Beta, ESR
• Release channel Blockers and Regressions
• Beta channel Blockers and Regressions
• Aurora channel Blockers and Regressions
• Nightly channel Blockers and Regressions
• Stability dashboard
• Dashboard the Cat - she likes to eat headphones

Release managers also help with ways we can update aspects of Firefox on the fly, including add-on hotfixes, and graphics driver and plugin blocklisting.

• Hotfix process documentation
• Blocklisting

Here are some guidelines for developers, product managers, and our team as well.

• Uplift rules
• Tracking rules
• Release notes rules

Tools

• Ship-it UI - Need to be on MPT VPN
• Our Release Survey
• Firefox Triage Dashboard
• Onboarding

B2G pages

• B2G Triage Page
• B2G Landing
• FXOS Localizations (auth required)

Repacks

• Chinese repack