Ceph release cadence

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Hi everyone,

Traditionally, we have done a major named "stable" release twice a year, 
and every other such release has been an "LTS" release, with fixes 
backported for 1-2 years.

With kraken and luminous we missed our schedule by a lot: instead of 
releasing in October and April we released in January and August.

A few observations:

- Not a lot of people seem to run the "odd" releases (e.g., infernalis, 
kraken).  This limits the value of actually making them.  It also means 
that those who *do* run them are running riskier code (fewer users -> more 
bugs).

- The more recent requirement that upgrading clusters must make a stop at 
each LTS (e.g., hammer -> luminous not supported, must go hammer -> jewel 
-> lumninous) has been hugely helpful on the development side by reducing 
the amount of cross-version compatibility code to maintain and reducing 
the number of upgrade combinations to test.

- When we try to do a time-based "train" release cadence, there always 
seems to be some "must-have" thing that delays the release a bit.  This 
doesn't happen as much with the odd releases, but it definitely happens 
with the LTS releases.  When the next LTS is a year away, it is hard to 
suck it up and wait that long.

A couple of options:

* Keep even/odd pattern, and continue being flexible with release dates

  + flexible
  - unpredictable
  - odd releases of dubious value

* Keep even/odd pattern, but force a 'train' model with a more regular 
cadence

  + predictable schedule
  - some features will miss the target and be delayed a year

* Drop the odd releases but change nothing else (i.e., 12-month release 
cadence)

  + eliminate the confusing odd releases with dubious value
 
* Drop the odd releases, and aim for a ~9 month cadence. This splits the 
difference between the current even/odd pattern we've been doing.

  + eliminate the confusing odd releases with dubious value
  + waiting for the next release isn't quite as bad
  - required upgrades every 9 months instead of ever 12 months

* Drop the odd releases, but relax the "must upgrade through every LTS" to 
allow upgrades across 2 versions (e.g., luminous -> mimic or luminous -> 
nautilus).  Shorten release cycle (~6-9 months).

  + more flexibility for users
  + downstreams have greater choice in adopting an upstrema release
  - more LTS branches to maintain
  - more upgrade paths to consider

Other options we should consider?  Other thoughts?

Thanks!
sage
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