Draft release partner program for 2021 Release

[joshblack]

Our initial epic issue for the 2021 Release is available in #7717. In this issue, we provide a rough timeline for how we're hoping to schedule releases for this major update to the system.

As part of this journey, one of our release goals is to successfully ship this release to production with at least one team before making it generally available. In order to fulfill this goal, we want to draft an early form of a "release partner program". This program will provide the following information:

• What is a Release Partner
• Who can become a Release Partner
• What is expected of Release Partners
• How can a Release Partner get access to preview releases
• How can a Release Partner make a preview release available to their users
• What is the feedback loop between Release Partners and the Carbon team with changes that are made to the system
• What kinds of changes can Release Partners expect from preview release channels

[joshblack]

Release Partner Program

About the Program

The Release Partner Program provides an opportunity for product teams, PALs, framework authors, and Carbon to collaborate towards the 2021 release of the Carbon Design System. This lets us:

• Preview changes that the Carbon team is considering for feedback before making them widely available
• Coordinate ecosystem changes in lock-step, packages and teams can release alongside the 2021 release

This program will last until the stable 2021 release and is available to all teams interested in previewing changes, offering feedback, and participating in early releases as we near our GA date.

How it works

The Carbon team is currently working towards their next major update. As we make progress towards that goal, we will be regularly meeting with teams in an optional, biweekly (every other week) meeting.

In these meetings, the Carbon team will:

• Ask for feedback from the previous iteration from participants
• Report on any progress made in the previous two weeks by the team
• Bring up proposals for new work and request feedback from participants

The team will follow this loop as it builds towards the alpha, beta, and release candidate releases of the design system.

Release Channels

To accompany the biweekly meetings, and to support previewing the 2021 release, the Carbon team will maintain a release channel dedicated to accessing the latest code for the 2021 release.

This release channel will enable teams to download and use the release, along with distributing it in their own release process if they would like to expose it to consumers to try out. Support will be provided for APIs that we're committing to for a release, but teams should expect breaking changes in this release channel that don't follow semver.

How to join

We would love to welcome product teams, PALs, framework implementations, libraries, and more into the Release Partner Program. If you're interested in joining and able to dedicate some time to help us out every other week, please fill out an issue using this template and we'll get back to you soon!

FAQ