Re: Release process -- can I put tarfiles up for www/ftp access?

[Rob Browning]

Neil Jerram <address@hidden> writes:

> I'd say go straight for 1.6.0.  How stable does it need to be,
> already?  In future, when looking back, I think it will look weird if
> the sequence of "1.6.x" tarballs consists of 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 1.6.0,
> 1.6.1, ...
> 
> (I'm assuming that any released tar file will already have been
> build-tested by the volunteers mentioned in RELEASE.)

I think we're going to put the test releases up on alpha.gnu.org.  (We
have to put them somewhere so that the testers can get to them.)  The
only question I can think of is whether there's any reason to "hide"
them in a read-only directory the way some projects do.  I presume
this is done so that pre-release versions won't get out as "official"
somehow and cause headaches.

However, I tend to think that that's unnecessary, and possibly
counterproductive, at least for us.  The kernel seems to get by just
fine with a well published versioning scheme and public betas, and I
think we can too.  Though we should have a README or
THESE-ARE-BETA-VERSIONS file in the ftp directory.  Also, with hidden
betas, you're less likely to get extra testing from random volunteers.

Anyway, 1.5.1 should be ready for testing soon, and I doubt we'll have
more than a couple of iterations before the release.

Thanks

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org, @linuxdevel.com, and @debian.org
Previously @cs.utexas.edu
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