Re: patching the stable branch (was: Re: Octave 3.1.52 available for ftp)

[Thomas Weber]

Am Donnerstag, den 12.02.2009, 12:56 -0500 schrieb John W. Eaton:
> On 12-Feb-2009, Thomas Weber wrote:
> 
> | This boils down to not fixing bugs, but only errors introduced when
> | fixing other bugs. Frankly, I'd consider such releases pointless.
> 
> I don't think it is pointless to fix regressions, and they can also be
> introduced when adding new functionality, not just when fixing bugs.
> 
> These guidelines are essentially the same as used for GCC releases.

Given that I'm still stuck on GCC 4.1 for compiling Octave on ARM/Linux,
I'm a little bit biased. In other words, I'm not convinced by GCC's
development model.


> | Additionally, the work for checking older versions is non-trivial. Which
> | older versions do you want to check? Who is going to check it?
> 
> Typically, I think we see bug reports that say things like "this used
> to work, but when I upgraded it failed".

Yes, but this stuff might be arch-specific or library specific. After an
upgrade (especially if its a distribution), there's no guaranteed way
back, meaning something might be failing, but it's not Octave's fault.

        Thomas