Re: Post-2.12 release plans

[Trevor Daniels]

Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote Monday, December 22, 2008 6:22 PM


> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:58 AM, Graham Percival
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > > Does this mean you do not want to make any difference between odd and
> > > even versions?
> >
> > No.  .13 would be the "devel" version, where syntax changes are
> > introduced, and any major breakage occurs.  It would last as long
> > as necessary to fix the major breakage and everybody to get their
> > syntax changes introduced.  Then .14 would be released.
> >
> > Ideally, I'd shoot for 6 months of .12, 2 months of .13, then .14.
> > I mean, if there's no syntax changes and no major breakage, then
> > there's no point stopping .12 and calling it .13.  Now, 6 months
> > without syntax changes is probably a bit long at this point, so
> > .12 might only be 3 months.  But hopefully .14 or .16 could have a
> > longer stable branch.
>
> It would be really nice if we could invert the rhythms of
> stable/devel: have a long stable cycle with many releases (like 2.11
> had), and then    have a flurry of 2.13 releases which introduce
> incompatibilities, and push out 2.14 asap.

I'm still not sold on the benefits of this.  There are many users who do not
want a changing environment - the ones that are still on 2.10, for example.
If we go along with this, there will be no uniform stable environment.  Even
if each of these users just downloads a single version and sticks with that,
they may choose different versions, which means they have different
documentation and different features. That complicates discussion and
help on -user.  It also makes keeping the documentation in synch more
difficult.  That doesn't matter in a release clearly tagged as 
"development",
but it does matter in a release tagged as stable.

I still think the benefits of a truly stable release for those users who
simply want to engrave music should not be discarded lightly.  So far
this discussion has been limited to the -devel list.  Should we not seek
opinion on-user?

Trevor