Release plan - v16.x Maintenance

[BethGriggs]

Draft schedule - all dates subject to change

Release Date	Release	Releaser
2021-10-26	v16.13.0 (LTS Transition)	@richardlau
2021-12-01	v16.13.1	@BethGriggs
2022-01-10	v16.13.2	@danielleadams
2022-02-08	v16.14.0	@danielleadams
2022-03-08	v16.14.1	@danielleadams
2022-03-18	v16.14.2	@richardlau
2022-04-xx	v16.15.0	@danielleadams
2022-06-01	v16.15.1	@BethGriggs
2022-07-07	v16.16.0 (Security)	@danielleadams
2022-08-16	v16.17.0	@targos
2022-09-23	v16.17.1 (Security)	@ruyadorno
2022-10-03	v16.18.0	@juanarbol
2022-11-04	v16.18.1 (Security)	@BethGriggs
2022-12-13	v16.19.0	@richardlau
2023-02-16	v16.19.1 (Security)	@richardlau
2023-03-29	v16.20.0	@BethGriggs
2023-06-20	v16.20.1 (Security)	@RafaelGSS
2023-08-09	v16.20.2 (Security)	@RafaelGSS
2023-08-xx	v16.20.3	@richardlau

Current

Release Date	Release	Releaser
2021-04-20	v16.0.0	@BethGriggs
2021-05-04	v16.1.0	@targos
2021-05-19	v16.2.0	@targos
2021-06-02	v16.3.0	@danielleadams
2021-06-23	v16.4.0	@danielleadams
2021-07-01	v16.4.1 (Security)	@BethGriggs
2021-07-05	v16.4.2	@BethGriggs
2021-07-14	v16.5.0	@targos
2021-07-29	v16.6.0	@BethGriggs
2021-08-03	v16.6.1	@targos
2021-08-11	v16.6.2	@BethGriggs (security)
2021-08-17	v16.7.0	@danielleadams
2021-08-25	v16.8.0	@targos
2021-09-07	v16.9.0	@targos
2021-09-10	v16.9.1	@richardlau
2021-09-22	v16.10.0	@BethGriggs
2021-10-08	v16.11.0	@danielleadams
2021-10-12	v16.11.1 (Security)	@danielleadams
2021-10-20	v16.12.0	@richardlau

[danielleadams]

Contrary to what we discussed at the last Releasers meeting, I wasn't able to get 16.4.0 out on Thursday, so I'm going to push the schedule back 1 week for that release. And we should probably reflect rest of the schedule with the additional week.

[theoludwig]

The schedule is wrong for the past releases.
Could someone update it, please? @danielleadams @BethGriggs

I already updated the table :

Release Date	Release	Releaser
2021-04-20	v16.0.0	@BethGriggs
2021-05-04	v16.1.0	@targos
2021-05-19	v16.2.0	@targos
2021-06-02	v16.3.0	@danielleadams
2021-06-23	v16.4.0	@danielleadams
2021-06-29	v16.x.x	@BethGriggs
2021-07-13	v16.x.x
2021-07-27	v16.x.x
2021-08-10	v16.x.x
2021-08-24	v16.x.x
2021-09-07	v16.x.x
2021-09-21	v16.x.x
2021-10-05	v16.x.x
2021-10-19	v16.x.x
2021-10-26	LTS Transition

In Markdown, it looks like this :

| **Release Date** | **Release**    | **Releaser**   |
| ---------------- | -------------- | -------------- |
| 2021-04-20       | v16.0.0        | @BethGriggs    |
| 2021-05-04       | v16.1.0        | @targos        |
| 2021-05-19       | v16.2.0        | @targos        |
| 2021-06-02       | v16.3.0        | @danielleadams |
| 2021-06-23       | v16.4.0        | @danielleadams |
| 2021-06-29       | v16.x.x        | @BethGriggs    |
| 2021-07-13       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-07-27       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-08-10       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-08-24       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-09-07       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-09-21       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-10-05       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-10-19       | v16.x.x        |                |
| 2021-10-26       | LTS Transition |                |

And we should probably reflect rest of the schedule with the additional week.

Yes, we should postpone all the next releases to one week. 👍
I didn't do that yet for the new table.

[BethGriggs]

Updated. I'd prefer to keep the schedule as is rather than move all the future dates out - I can make a call next week whether there's enough to warrant a release so soon or skip.

[targos]

@BethGriggs I added myself to July 13, but I'm also available on the other one, in case you prefer that date.

[danielleadams]

I picked up the August releases, but happy to swap if anyone needs/wants to.

[danielleadams]

Pushed back tomorrow's to 8/17.

[richardlau]

We have 58 commits currently unreleased on v16.x-staging -- most probably due to the recent security releases supplanting the originally planned release last week. I'm going to try to get a quick release out this week to get those out and then we can keep the LTS transition next week to the usual "only changes the LTS bit" release.

[danielleadams]

Following up here - a backport has been opened for nodejs/node#42726 (nodejs/node#42726), but 16.15.0 won't be ready for tomorrow.

[targos]

The staging branch for v16.17.0 is almost ready. I'm aiming the release for 2022-08-16.

[juanarbol]

The v16.18.0 will have a delay to Monday 03 of October due to many conflicts and work stuff

[richardlau]

Node.js 16 reaches End-of-Life in a few weeks on 11 September 2023. I've been looking at open PRs for v16.x as well as closed PR's labelled lts-watch-v16.x.

We have two open PRs:

title	PR	notes
[v16.x] doc: include git add -f to include folder	nodejs/node#49004	I don't think this is necessary if following the instructions in the maintenaning OpenSSL guide.
[v16.x backport] deps: update corepack to 0.18.1	nodejs/node#47337	corepack is experimental. Current version of corepack in v16.x is 0.17.0 (and main is on 0.19.0).

And lts-watch-v16.x labelled:

title	PR	notes
Add auto to docs' contain-intrinsic-size decl, to prevent jitter/flicker	nodejs/node#48195
url: do not use object as hashmap	nodejs/node#47415
esm: add a runtime warning when using import assertions	nodejs/node#46901
child_process: validate arguments for null bytes	nodejs/node#44782	Suggestion that this prevents security issues.
tools: fix duration_ms to be milliseconds	nodejs/node#44490
src,lib: print source map error source on demand	nodejs/node#43875	Labelled baking-for-lts

I've also already cherry-picked onto v16.x-staging a commit to fix the V8 CI for Node.js 16, plus two root certificate updates which at first glance appear to be the only notable reason for doing another Node.js 16 release. The root certificate updates add two root certificates and removes three others:

Certificates added:

• BJCA Global Root CA1
• BJCA Global Root CA2

Certificates removed:

• Network Solutions Certificate Authority
• EC-ACC
• Staat der Nederlanden EV Root CA

My only window to do a release is next week -- I'm going to be busy with work between 4-9 September. I'm currently leaning towards not doing a final Node.js 16 release. @nodejs/lts @nodejs/releasers thoughts?

One option could be to land things on v16.x-staging but not release so that they'd be there if people want to build from source.

[richardlau]

nodejs/node#47337 passed CI so I've landed it on v16.x-staging.