[GRASS5] What to release as 5.1.0?

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 09:52:26AM +0100, Markus Neteler wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 01:07:06PM +0100, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> > 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?
> 
> Let's say 90% of modules. This could be ready within some days
> of generating the relevant Makefiles and the entries in the
> 50-to-51-links tool. Only hybrid modules with raster *and* vector
> support such as r.flow need an update (which may be rather easy to
> do).

Sounds realistic to me.
Next step would be to make a plan and discuss it.

> > 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.
> 
> That means to reinvent the wheel? Bernhard, the idea of 5.1 is to
> overcome the serious flaws of 5.0 :-) BTW, it's functional...
> I would not waste a minute to change the 5.0/5.2 design in terms of
> the vector engine.

I clarified this in my other mail.
My wording was a bit missleading. 
The "real fix" for the vector problem is Radim's work.

> Right. But new vector development should be done in 5.1. Fixes may
> go into 5.0 as well. Note that the 5.1 vector engine is much (!)
> cleaner than that of 5.0.

> To make GRASS a faster dinosaur, we have to focus on 5.1. Otherwise
> it were dead (say, without users) one day.

Users are very conservative in terms of stability of the software.
They rather have a slow, restricted dinosaur than
a faster one that stumbles all the time.

The question is not if we make GRASS better and faster,
the question is how to do this with maintaining the stability.

So far the GRASS 5.0.x line seems to be a success.
We'll fix bugs and do minor enhancements to it
and the big new change the much improved vector capabilities will be in 5.2.x.

I'm confident that GRASS 5.2.x will be huge success.