On Sun, 2004-07-11 at 10:43 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
As mentioned in the freeze process proposal for this release, we will have a new 'Hard Freeze' step to give us better quality control for the run-up to the Release Phase.
During the Hard Freeze, we all refrain from committing to CVS. Instead, necessary changes should be posted to the patch tracker. A couple people -- the "Change Control Team" -- have the responsibility to vet and apply patches if they're absolutely necessary.
Why not use branches so people can continue committing whilst you have a temporary release branch to which you apply the freeze? That is what branches are for - having different versions of a codebase for varying purposes (in this case continued development vs. frozen code).