[GRASS5] What to release as 5.1.0?

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 12:39:34PM +0100, Radim Blazek wrote:
> On Monday 24 February 2003 05:09 pm, Bernhard wrote:
> > However we try to get 5.1.x out and stable as fast
> > as possible which you probably should count in quarter of years.
> 
> The question is what may be released as 5.1.0, I think that it could 
> be released when it contains most of vector+sites functionality
> from 5.0. Say 90% of modules?

Sounds fine to me, though what about raster?

I agree that we should make a more precise plan if we can.
As you are the one most active on 5.1 I would happy if you can
propose something.

Note (for people just reading this post): 5.1.0 will be a development release.

> > We need people who fix bugs in 5.0.x and do maintance releases.
> > Vector support is not bad in principle it just could be a lot better.
> 
> Unfortunately the system how categories are stored and then attached
> to lines and points IS bad in principle. It is not reliable and correct 
> data imported to 5.0 may lose it's attributes. That was why 5.1 was started.

When do we loose vector attributes?
If the vector support as limited as it is in 5.0. has serious flaws,
then we could consider to limit ourself to only fix this flaw for 5.2
and delay other things for 5.4.

> On Tuesday 25 February 2003 02:39 am, Chris wrote:
> > This may be a philosophic issue rather than a software issue. When I look
> > at the Grass website I see the words "stable release" and "supported"
> > associated with 5.0.0 and the words "highly experimental" and "use at you
> > own risk" associated with 5.1.x. That is not going to encourage a quick
> > transistion to the next version by the average user. 
> 
> Yes, and it will remain as it is if everybody says "it is not stable, I'll
> work on stable". If you think that some hidden team of developers exists,
> which will suddenly release stable 5.2, then that's not true.

I agree with Radim that we need to people to progress 5.1.
Which does not mean that we should stop supporting 5.0.x.

> > My guess is that many
> > users are more interested in having a stable GIS even if the functions are
> > limited than having ideal functionality with unknown stability. 
> 
> If you are improving v.digit/5.0 for other users than it is OK, I just 
> worried that you want to use it yourself :)
> I agree that stable is often better, however I don't think that v.digit is 
> this case. Yes, many tools are missing in v.digit/5.1 but v.digit/5.0 is 
> realy terribly inefficient. I think that everybody who wants to use v.digit 
> more than one day, should consider
> v.digit/5.1
> v.out.ascii/5.1
> v.in.ascii/5.0