[GRASS-dev] Re: testing in 6.5 before backporting to 6.4

[Markus Metz]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Hamish <hamish_b at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Martin wrote:
>> right. On the other hand you need to bear in mind at which
>> point of release cycle you are. In the case that we would like to
>> release 6.4.2 in Nov/Dec we are slightly in the middle. I don't think
>> that we need to be so much pedantic all time. 2-3 mounts before release
>> we should focus on testing, bugfixing, etc. - i.e. before RC1.
>
> while keeping in mind that no system can be 100% ideal, and if we go too
> far into stability we stifle new development, it is generally good to keep
> the stable branch in a near-releasable state at all times in case we have to
> do an emergency release due to some critical data-corruption or copyright bug.
>
+1

A number of changes to 6.5 and 7.0 went in untested, which is IMHO not
a good idea, but being development branches, maybe sometimes
excusable. Any changes to the release branch should however be tested
before submitted. For most changes, the kind of test is pretty much
straightforward, and, if omitted and the change introduces a bug,
places a burden on users and other developers to figure out what went
wrong and why, wasting other people's time and leaving a not so good
impression of a releasebranch.

Markus M