By Maureen Helm, Chair of the Zephyr Project Technical Steering Committee
The Zephyr community converges every year at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe, and 2019 was no exception. This year we traveled to Lyon, France for an engaging week full of technical talks, spontaneous hallway conversations and hacking sessions, team dinners, and perhaps a nice glass of wine or two. It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know some of our newer members in person and finally put faces to familiar names and voices.
After the main conference, the Zephyr technical steering committee stayed on for two days of face-to-face meetings, including a few dial-ins from those who couldn’t make the trip. Compared to our weekly calls, the longer format F2F meeting allowed us to discuss and debate issues in greater depth, and make decisions about the technical direction of the project.
#1 – Mainline releases: Historically we have aimed for quarterly releases, but will shift to a 4-month cycle in 2020. More details, including dates, are in the Program Management wiki page.
#2 – LTS releases: We clarified that LTS releases will be maintained for two years, and LTS2 will be released approximately two years after LTS1. We did not decide on a cadence beyond LTS2.
#3 – Toolchains: We agreed that multiple members have an interest in supporting commercial toolchains and will kickoff a new toolchain-focused working group.
#4 – User Experience: We brainstormed possible solutions to common problems encountered by new developers.
#5 – Roles and Responsibilities: We debated a contributor ladder towards maintainership, how to distribute merge rights, and how to fill the release manager role for future releases. This conversation has continued in subsequent process working group meetings.
Thank you to everyone who joined, and I look forward to seeing you next time at the Embedded Linux Conference in Austin, Texas!