[GRASS5] Re: GRASS 5.0.1 released

[GFernandez-Victorio at IGAE.minhac.es]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 3:21 PM
> To: grass5 at grass.itc.it
> Subject: [GRASS5] Re: GRASS 5.0.1 released
> 
> 
> Markus, etc,
> 
> Without having any specifics to contribute, I would just like 
> to second
> Markus' point about keeping CVS update access as 
> straightforward as possible.
> As a very occasional committer I have found it difficult to 
> be sure that I
> am working on the right version and have avoided fixing 
> things myself unless
> I am planning to do a fair amount of work.

I'm not even occasional committer. I send this as a start 
of a "brainstorming".

Some thoughts:

-There are few contributors.
-Very _few_ people test other people contributions.
-It's difficult to classify a contribution. Grass 5.1 vector
capabilities is a big enhancement, but others (the last I remember:
Paul's modification of *.proj) could be considered anything
between a new feature and a necessary fix depending on who uses it.
-It seems that now there are three versions of grass. One "hyperadvanced"
(e.g. 5.1), one with many enhancements (5.0 HEAD), one "hyperstable" (5.0.1)
-Testing is not proportional to time between releases.
-We have one of the biggest software base with one of the smaller
developer base of the free(open) software world.

And now, my proposal, (remember, just "brainstorming")
-I will propose a shorter release cycle, with not branching. Just 
two versions(e.g. Grass 5.1 seem not to be something stable enough). 
-CVS would be a "patch monkey", somewhere to contribute code. It
would be great if there were (instead) a human patch monkey.
-One week before releasing a new version, there shouldn't be 
contributions, just ¿testing and bug fixes?. 
-If a new version goes out with a bug, no problem, 
"wait next release".

Hope this helps



Gonzalo