Subject: Re: [RELEASE] 0.9.3 schedule ?
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Aug 25 2001 - 08:43:52 CDT
On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, Paul Rohr wrote:
> At 09:50 AM 8/24/01 +0200, Hubert Figuiere wrote:
> >That would be nice if we could release 0.9.3 on Monday or Tuesday.
> >There have been significant bug fixes.
> >
> >If someone objects, please tell us and explain the issues.
>
> I object. (Wasn't that obvious?)
>
> Dom and I started a public discussion last week about what our release
> process should be. For details, see the following threads:
>
> http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/01/August/0401.html
> http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/01/August/0685.html
>
> I see no evidence that there's consensus on what our release process should
> be, and I'd like to see some discussion before we continue moving forward in
> the current direction.
>
> If I'm the only one who cares about this, say so, but simply going ahead
> without acknowledging or responding to that discussion is uncool.
>
> >I also suggest that we do a source-only release. This means that we announce
> >the release once the source tarball has been validated and posted and let
> >the binaries come after. That will help save some time.
>
> This would, if anything, make the problems we faced with prior releases even
> more likely. Tagging and announcing tarballs that nobody's built or tested
> is the best way I can think of to increase the chances that we'll have to do
> yet another brown paper bag release.
>
> We can do better than that.
>
OK for what it's worth, once there is a source ball release it is pretty
easy for me to make Red Hat 7.1 binaries of both the GTK and gnome builds.
This is not such a big imposition for me. I have scripts which do a large
fraction of the work.
If we have a volenteer to make Win32 binaries we can go forward with at
least Win32 and some linux binaries simultanous with the source code
release.
The real issue is that once these binaries are made, it takes a long time
to get feedback on the builds. Can we have also have volenteers to
*quickly* test the Win32 and RH 7.1 binaries?
Without this help the process becomes really frustrating for everyone.
Then there are two sorts of bugs that can occur.
1. Real source code bugs like 0.9.2 has.
2. Packaging bugs.
I suggest we make a preminary source code release followed by some quick
builds and volenteers to test these.
If these go OK with our volenteer testers on WIN AND Linux the preliminary
release becomes THE release.
However if we don't get volenteers to make a Win build and test them
everything gets bogged down.
The corollary is that if we don't have volenteers we should realize our
limitations decrease the scope of our ambitions accordingly.
If we can't find developers to test builds, maybe we could ask the users
list?
If we can't find volenteers to test the builds everyone will just have to
live with either brown paper bag releases or a slower development
rate.
As Dom says, other projects of similar scope to ours have a considerable
number of paid personel. We have zero.
Cheers
Martin
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