[GRASS-dev] GRASS 6.4.0 release branch forthcoming

[Paul Kelly]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2008, Markus Neteler wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 1:45 AM, Paul Kelly
> <paul-grass at stjohnspoint.co.uk> wrote:
>> So I feel there is no real option but to go straight to 6.4.0. I'm still not
>> sure if we need a release branch though.
>
> You mean we should just tag RC1 from develbranch_6?
> We commonly used a release branch so far to avoid breakage.

Yes, it is a bit risky going ahead with no release branch. It would mean 
we would have to be very careful deciding what went into 6.4, and if an 
incompatible change was to be made at some time in the future, a release 
branch would have to be created *at that stage*, to preserve the 
functional state of 6.4 in order to create future 6.4.x bugfix releases if 
necessary.

My point is just that it would be a huge headache having three branches - 
backporting from 7.x to 6.x is already enough work - and if we felt that 
develbranch_6 is quite stable already we could probably manage the 6.4.0 
release without creating a new branch. As far as I can see, commits to 
develbranch_6 consist mostly of bugfixes already at this stage, so this 
might not be too hard to do?

I still think at some point a 6.4 release branch will be needed (when we 
want to add new features) but I think we should put off creating it as 
long as possible to reduce work. That's all - it depends on other 
developers agreeing to restrict the changes we make to develbranch_6 for a 
while though.

Paul