[sakai2-tcc] Sakai 2.9 Release Planning

[Beth Kirschner]

Following up on Anthony's transition to his new roles and responsibilities with the OAE project, the CLE release team has had an opportunity to re-invent itself. I'd like to give a overview of these changes to the community, and I'd like to encourage everyone to read this message.

1) 2.9 Release Management Team: 
	Sam Ottenhoff (Longsight) - Release Lead
	Matt Jones (UM) & Chris Maurer (IU) - Release Engineers
	Gonzalo Silverio (UM) & Greg Thomas (IU) - 2.9 Branch Management
	Rob Egan (Marist) - QA point person

   Sam will be leading the Release Team/Maintenance Team meetings going forward. Please note that _everyone_ involved in the CLE development effort is welcome on these calls. If you have commit privilege, you're a member of this team. More involvement on these calls will result in more community input as well as a producing a release that serves all of us.

  Release Team calls are on the Sakai001 conference bridge, every Thursday at 10am EDT:
	• +1 812 856 7060         
	• Conference Code: 22348#

2) 2.9 Release Schedule:
  I will soon be updating the online 2.9 schedule to reflect the following changes:
	* The Sakai source "trunk" will be considered the alpha 2.9 release. Feature Freeze was last week, and no new features should be checked into trunk without prior arrangement. If any unexpected features are committed to trunk, you will be asked to revert them. Another way to put this is that trunk is no longer "wild", and new feature development should be made in a branch until we create a formal 2.9 release branch.
	* We will be tagging trunk as the first 2.9.0-A01 Alpha Tag soon, and will follow up with a new Alpha tag every two weeks.
	* The first Beta tag will be created at the release team's discretion, with a goal of tagging in November.
	* The first Release Candidate will be created at the release team's discretion, with a goal of tagging in December or January.

3) QA Team Calls
  Everyone is welcome to help with the QA effort. More involvement on these calls and on QA testing will result in a release that better serves all institutions. 

  The calls are scheduled every Thursday at 9am EDT:
	https://connect.sunet.se/qa-sakai/	
	https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/2.9+Test+Fest

Thanks!
- Beth