[GRASS5] GRASS 5.0.3 released

[Helena]

Bernhard Reiter wrote:

>>>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.

I would say that 5.3. has some substantial improvements in terms
of projection capabilities, nviz and addition of some new modules.
We are using it quite intensively and it is very stable for the things
that we do (of course that is just a small part of GRASS). As Paul
has mentioned in one of his previous messages, 5.3 is probably
better tested than the current 5.0.3 because more developers use it.
So if we have anybody who has the knowledge to do the 5.3 release
I would very much recommend doing it soon (maybe it is already ready?)
and then move on to 5.7. There is just too much good and important
new stuff in 5.3 to leave it unreleased.

that is just my opinion,

Helena


> There have been many ideas on what to do to clean up,
> but we never got enough people commited to do the actual work.


> 
>>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.
> 
>