[GRASS5] GRASS 5.0.3 released

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 01:43:41PM +0100, Thierry Laronde wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 01:02:18PM +0100, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 12:22:23PM +0100, Thierry Laronde wrote:
> > > 
> > > I think you took the correct decision to enforce us to work on 5.7++ ;)
> > 
> > GRASS has quite a conservative user base.
> > That is something that always was a concern for Markus, too.
> > Beside that the code base is gigantic.
> 
> It is perhaps too late but it took me some time (and the great help of
> Hamish's advices) to understand the organization of code/CVS.
> 
> May I say that, for me, now, the simplest way (separating difficulties)
> should be first to stop indeed _all_ additions to 5.x 

This is already in place for many 5.x lines with x<7.

5.0.x is only for "critical" bug fixes.
5.1 and 5.2 is discontinued.
5.3.x has some improvement, but is only bugfixing.
5.4.x shall replace  5.0.x as soon as 5.3.x is tested.

5.5. and 5.6 are buffer number, which hopefully won't be needed.

> and that 5.4 will
> be GRASS 5.0 slimmed down to the strict necessary (deleting all the
> unneeded code, chosing one between multiple alternatives, putting in
> libraries shared code etc [eventually concentrating all the bugs in
> one place] ; that is cleaning the code without changing
> things) 

There have been many ideas on what to do to clean up,
but we never got enough people commited to do the actual work.
On the other hand Radim was interested in vector, 
so we started up 5.7.x .

Vector functionality is getting usable,
so maybe we save big cleanup ideas for 5.9.
5.7.x (remember 7 means it is always an experimental development line)
experimental releases need to get out of the door.

> and that once this is done, once the code is reorganized make
> the jump to 6.0 alpha aka present 5.7.

5.7 will lead to stable 5.8 in my eyes.
I don't think we should dub that 6 something.

> Mixing huge internal changes (new vector format) with an absolutely
> needed cleaning of the code will be an absolute pain and indeed delaying
> the releases (the separate actions are possible ; mixing the two is
> problematic).

We have to enable anybody you wants to work on GRASS
to be able to do it. This is why we need the structure.

> And please note that if we all (even if we are not very numerous)
> concentrate first in the gamma/gold 5 "release" this can be done in
> say a quarter. We need a muscle less unsaturated fat GRASS to take lean
> on for further jumps.

Experiences with GRASS development so far show,
that motivation for this is low.


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