Re: Stable release state

[David Kastrup]

"address@hidden" <address@hidden> writes:

> On 6 avr. 2013, at 12:07, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> 
>> With the recent batch of material with missing documentation, extensive
>> code changes and new functionality without previous exposure and moving
>> interfaces (like
>> commit 88d306d9c5666b5ade4a136df29cca19c5ff5ed7
>> Author: Mike Solomon <address@hidden>
>> Date:   Sat Apr 6 09:54:58 2013 +0200
>> 
>>    Break slurs between alternative endings in repeats; issue 1698.
>> 
>>    Create new event-types BreakPhrasingSlurEvent BreakSlurEvent,
>>    and a music-function \free so that users can create them.
>>    Create these event-types in the volta-repeat-iterator to break
>>    slurs between alternatives in a \repeat volta structure.
>> 
>> ) it is clear that master has stopped being suitable for turning into a
>> stable branch.  There are several ways forward, none of them
>> particularly endearing.
>
> Quick note to say that I'm fine reverting this if it gets in the way
> of stable release plans and waiting till a stable release comes out
> before this goes in. In this case, what would help on the countdown is
> to know what is patch push straightaway and what is patch push after
> the next stable release.

That would just be a stopgap measure.  Blocking the progress of
destabilizing material into master would only make sense if developers
actually cared for working on stabilizing the release instead.  If it
just means that developers stop working on LilyPond altogether (or at
least stop committing anything) until magically a stable release
appears, we have nothing to gain.  Yes, it would make for some added
exposure/timeframe for testing, but without an accompanying desire to
fix things, that's not really achieving anything.  In analogy to
"security theatre" with regard to flight passenger inconveniencing, it
would be "stability theatre".  People would feel that they sacrifice
something for a good reason when it is only a sacrifice for a feeling of
doing something, without actually doing so.

On a different tack, it would appear that Gmane, at least its coverage
of the LilyPond mailing lists, has broken down for at least a day or so,
judging from the discrepancy of the official mailing list archives and
Gmane's coverage.  We probably should not try making/forcing any
decisions before it is back up again since a number of people rely on it
for LilyPond-related communication.

-- 
David Kastrup