The staging branch has been created; release pushed to December 5th; Select PRs allowed to be submitted to staging

[BobbyRBruce]

Hey all,

The release staging branch has been created. However, unlike run-ups to previous gem5 releases, this one has had gem5 community members pushing relatively big features, some of which require more time for reviewing, testing, and development back-and-forth. While the original goal was to release v24.1 on November 22nd, doing so would require that the staging branch be ready for intensive testing now.

Given that these features need more time, we’ve decided to push the release to December 5th. While the staging branch has still been created, we will permit these PRs (listen below) to be merged within the next two weeks (as well as any bug fixes). In all cases, the contributors of these have been vocal about their desire to be part of the release and have worked with us to make this happen. Therefore, we’re willing to make an exception to our usual release procedures.

All other contributions to the develop branch (outside of bug fixes) will be assumed for 25.0 and can continue on as normally during this time.

We apologize for not giving ample notice of this release and have noted this as something to improve upon. We would, however, like to thank the great community development effort put into this release nonetheless.

• ruby: Enable all protocols in a single gem5 build #117
• mem-ruby, configs: Add a CHI-TLM controller + testing #1084
• cpu: add GlobalInstTracker and LocalInstTracker #1433
• stdlib: Add viper board, viper cache, and gpu components #1636
• cpu: LoopPoint analysis object #1419
• stdlib: Add interface to set binary in fs mode #1743
• misc: Do not share the random number generator across components #1534
• mem-ruby, sim-se: Add support for Maybe_Stale blocks in functional reads #1489
• python,stdlib: Improve exit event return #947
• base: Adding modulo intlv option to AddrRange #1581
• arch-riscv: Use getValidAddr to get zero-extend address in RV32 mode #1768
• Illegal instruction with 6.11.3 Kernel #1674

[Harshil2107]

We should also fix this issue: #1674