Status of Bazel 5.0.0-pre.20210604.6

[fweikert]

• Expected release date: June 11th

Task list:

• Pick release baseline: d571c89 with cherrypicks c367a7e 260015d
• Create release candidate: https://releases.bazel.build/5.0.0/rolling/5.0.0-pre.20210604.6rc1/index.html
• Check Bazel post-submit: https://buildkite.com/bazel/bazel-bazel/builds/16498
• Check downstream projects: https://buildkite.com/bazel/bazel-at-head-plus-downstream/builds/2065
• Push the release: https://releases.bazel.build/5.0.0/rolling/5.0.0-pre.20210604.6/index.html
• Update the release page

[fweikert]

cc @konste: This release contains 2f0927a

[konste]

@fweikert Thank you for letting me know! This is great, we are waiting for 2f0927a.

But frankly we are very confused about multiple release "trains" going on at the same time. Between this and 4.2.0 which is expected to release earlier? Is this 5.0.0 or some pre-release of 5.0.0? Where are rolling releases in this picture?

[konste]

Also we tested 5.0.0-pre.20210510.2.2 and found that it removed the flag --noincompatible_blacklisted_protos_requires_proto_info which we still rely on. Is it possible to revert it? I am trying to dig more details now.

[brentleyjones]

Is this 5.0.0 or some pre-release of 5.0.0?

This is the development branch, which will eventually be branched to 5.0.0 in September. 4.2.0 is based on the 4.1.0 branch, which is based on the 4.0.0 branch, and only contains cherry-picks, while these releases are branches regularly from master.

https://docs.bazel.build/versions/main/versioning.html covers the difference. 4.2.0 is a minor release of the Bazel 4 LTS release. This is a rolling release.

[fweikert]

Going forward we're offering two parallel release trains instead of the old "one release a month" train:

• LTS releases: These are stable releases that have been tested thoroughly and will be released less frequently. A new major release happens roughly every nine months (starting with 4.0.0). We'll provide minor patch releases if bug/security fixes are necessary.
• Rolling releases: These are released much more frequently (typically weekly), but at the cost of stability. They're for early adopters who want to try new features, but don't want to wait for the next major LTS release (5.0.0 in this case).

The official announcement can be found here: https://blog.bazel.build/2020/11/10/long-term-support-release.html

[konste]

Thank you @brentleyjones and @fweikert for clarification. I was aware of LTS vs Rolling plan, but it was not obvious that 5.0.0-pre IS the Rolling train. Now it makes sense.

[fweikert]

Yes, you'll see many more 5.0.0-pre... rolling releases until we release 5.0.0 LTS, then all rolling releases will be named 6.0.0-pre...