[GRASS5] Keeping old version accessible.

Bernhard Reiter bernhard at intevation.de
Fri Oct 8 06:56:07 EDT 2004


Hi Paolo,

On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 10:11:32PM +0200, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

(^^^ Interesting: You are using deprecated non-MIME OpenPGP,
which is an example for contradicting what you have said
about bothering with old versions. )

> > No, please do not reduce the choice of people, it will hurt them.

I wrote that a few mails ago and it was meant against "deleting 5.0"
from the servers. (That was a missunderstanding that got clarified,
nobody proposed to delete it.)
Because you have addressed that point 
I feel a general answer is wanted.

> I do not agree with that. What is the problem using 5.3 instead of 5.0?
> Also, packagers will not upgrade to 5.7 if there still is a "stable" 5.0.

I think that advantages for 5.3 over 5.7. has been answered by
others in the thread.

As for archiving old versions (and making them easiy accessible)
this is quite important and all serious Free Software project do it.
What distributors are packaging is mostly up to them,
though they do appreciate understandable recommendations:

Examples:

	Linux Kernel: http://www.kernel.org/
	Still offering lines for 2.0.x 2.2.x 2.4.x and 2.6.x
	Modern distributions usually use 2.4.x with an optional
	choice of 2.6.x. There are small or special purpose
	distributions using 2.0.x and 2.2.x, too for stability
	or hardware reasons.

	GnuPG: www.gnupg.org
	A project with less uptodate webpages, but still offering
	gnupg-1.0.0 in the same directory with 1.2.6 (stable).
	ftp://ftp.cert.dfn.de/pub/tools/crypt/gcrypt/gnupg/
	Then there is 1.3.6 (more stable development to wards 1.4.0) and
	1.9.9 (experimental development).

	Samba: www.samba.org
	A project offering two stable releases 2.2.12 and 3.0.7
	and a development line with 3.1.x.

> More generally, a plea from a grass end user: stick to the KIS principle. I
> may miss some points, do not see any major problem in using 5.7. It is
> already far better than 5.0, and most users cannot afford missing the
> excellent new fector features. So, why bother with other versions? I think
> concentrating the (little) energies on one version, we'll get better results
> sooner.

> Overall, the situation is very strange (I do not know of any other program in
> this state), and should be better avoided.
> 
> Am I wrong?

At least there are many examples for Free Software projects
that keep older versions around and offer many different development lines.

	Bernhard
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