> Community,
> 
> I was the release manager for 2.34 and 2.35, and in retrospect I have
> played the hard ABI deadline too loose for my own liking, and I think
> this causes additional stress and work at the last minute that doesn't
> help the project.
> 

How about a much simpler change (which, I grant it, causes extra work):

* What is now the release date (with all related rules) moves one week
earlier, and results in a release candidate *tarball* (with a tag) from
the release branch.
* One week later, the actual release is done (and contains absolutely
only bugfixes compared to the rc)....

Cheers,
Andreas

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
(council, toolchain, base-system, perl, libreoffice)