[GRASS5] Objections to release 5.0.0stable?

[Eric G. Miller]

On Thu, Aug 08, 2002 at 08:02:35PM +0100, Paul Kelly wrote:
> Don't want to put a dampener on things but I just wanted to point out that
> I think the definition of a release-critical bug seems very vague:
> (from http://grass.itc.it/codemanagement.html )
> 
> A bug is critical (RT: priority 51..100), when it 
> 
> 1) breaks other software on the system (or the whole system), or causes
> serious data loss, or introduces a security hole on  systems where you
> install the package. 

Don't know of any serious breakage problems... But, I personally would
be very cautious about using GRASS in a setting where security concerns
are high.  I guarantee some tricky hacker could find a way to create a
buffer overflow if given a chance...

> 2) bug was not present in previous version (features known to be working in 
> previous versions are broken now). 
> 
> In my opinion, point 2 covers a large number of things that aren't in the
> bug tracker but I regularly read on the mailing list people complaining
> about modules that haven't been updated to GRASS 5 and aren't working
> properly. And a bug I put in the bug tracker about all the
> snprintf() calls that weren't there before---not a problem for me---I can
> work around it, but still without extra intervention it causes things to
> break that worked only 6 or 7 months ago. Also the changes to SG3d I
> mentioned in an e-mail to this list a while back regarding what I feel is 
> the wrong capitalisation of the GL includes directory being added in to
> #include directives in some files only this year. I think I could probably
> think of more examples of a type 2 release-critical bug if I tried.

Well, there have been few significant changes in the last couple "pre"
releases.  Yea, some things probably don't work right.  I don't know
about changes to SG3d, but the capitalization (or lack thereof) of GL
seems to be an inconsistency beyond the control of GRASS developers.  It
has been capitilized on Linux for as long as I can remember (which is
only a couple years).  But, I know it isn't capitalized on some other
systems.  Perhaps a job for ./configure?

As far as snprintf goes, I tried to address all the occurrences that I
had any part in.  Unless some new ones have been slipped in, the
remaining few have probably been there for quite some time.  I didn't
want to mess with code that I knew other developers had a better handle
on...

> I'm not suggesting stable shouldn't be released now; I think it's a good
> idea to encourage more people to use it, but as an impartial onlooker I am
> just a bit bemused at the very vague definition of release-critical bug
> and its application to the GRASS 5 release.

If a release helps drum up interest in GRASS, then I'm all for it.
Otherwise, I'd wager the bugs you see will never get fixed.

-- 
Eric G. Miller <egm2 at jps.net>