[GRASS-dev] GRASS 6.3.0 release preparation

[Paul Kelly]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007, Hamish wrote:

> Paul:
>>> I was just thinking, the Python GUI can probably be merged into the CVS
>>> HEAD after a release branch has been created for 6.4.x (probably won't be
>>> ready for that for at least a couple of months). Then there will be 6.5.x
>>> - we can probably start making other major changes there and release it
>>> eventually as 7.0? How does that sound?
> Glynn:
>> I'm disinclined towards the creation of 6.4/6.5 versions. I would
>> prefer to see stable = 6.3.x, dev = 7.0-cvs.
>
>
> My inclination is to package 6.3.0 in the near future as a tech-preview release
> while keeping 6.2.x as the main stable line, and the version we recommend to
> brand new users.
>
> As I don't think it would break anything (or even touch anything other than
> init.sh), merging in the WxGUI from Markus's SVN before 6.3.0 release as a
> non-default optional GUI choice would be a nice thing. Lack of wx2.8 is a
> self-correcting problem with time; as long as Wx isn't the default GUI, we
> shouldn't worry ourselves about it. It's an optional extra.

I think it would be bad to put it in now, because it would either (a) lead 
to too much extra work maintaining two versions of it in the 6.3/6.4 
branch, and also in the 7.0 branch, or (b) we'd abandon it and put all 
effort into improvements and developments to the version in the 7.0 
version, leaving people who've tried it in a 6.3/6.4 release with a 
different/poorer impression of the finished product compared to the 
version that will go along with 7.0.0.

After the 6.4 stable release (or even before that - just as soon as we 
get some kind of division made by either creating a release branch or 
moving new development to SVN) it's likely we'll be making some quite big 
changes in the CVS HEAD, so I expect we'll be maintaining 6.4 in a "very 
usable and recommended" state for really quite a while - meaning there'll 
likely be a lot of improvements and changes to the wxpython GUI during the 
same period of time and it would really be a pain to backport them to 6.4. 
Especially if there are major changes in the display architecture and 
perhaps the way the wxpython GUI uses it?

The same argument applies though to maintaining two versions of the Tcl/Tk 
gis.m. I wonder would it be too radical to delete gis.m from the CVS head 
after the 6.4 release branch has been created? It would keep things 
simple, in that bugfixes to gis.m could go into that branch and wouldn't 
affect anything else - it would also make it clear that wxpython is the 
only GUI we're supporting for 7.x and all efforts could go into it.

Too radical? The other points I hope I mostly addressed in my last mail.

Paul