3.0 release timeline proposal

[Matt Caswell]

Hi all

Myself, Paul, Shane, Richard and Nicola had a conf call today to discuss
the outstanding tasks and effort required to get us to a final release.

We've previously said this about that timeline:

"We are now not expecting code completion to occur until the end of Q2
2020 with a final release in early Q4 2020."
(https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2019/11/07/3.0-update/)


With that in mind we came up with the following proposal for a release
timetable which we think is a challenging but achievable timeline:

alpha1, 2020-03-31: Basic functionality plus basic FIPS module
alpha2, 2020-04-21: Complete external provider support (serialization,
support for new algs, support for providers which only include
operations in a class)
alpha3, 2020-05-21: Almost there (aiming to test the API completeness
before beta1 freezes it)
beta1, 2020-06-02: Code complete (API stable, feature freeze)
betaN: Other beta TBD
Final: 2020 early Q4

The idea here is to set some intermediate deadlines to focus attention
on the final remaining tasks, with a series of 3 alphas prior to the
first beta release where each alpha release comes approximately every 3
weeks. We can have some flexibility to adjust this timetable if we think
it is necessary (such as by including an additional alpha release if
required).

Please let me know your thoughts. This would probably need to go to an
OMC vote to get approved.

Matt