[GRASS-dev] GRASS 6.4.2 (was: GRASS extensions/addons mismatch)

[Moritz Lennert]

On 04/01/12 13:27, Martin Landa wrote:
> It would be nice if all active developers would do everything for
> releasing and not trying to avoid every attempt to release. We should
> keep some realistic level.

I don't think anyone is trying to "avoid every attempt to release". I 
think that it is more a debate about the level of quality and stability 
a release should have and about the criteria for that level.

> * our developers team is quite small, man power is low

[...]

> 1) release often (let's say 2x by year with max RC2 for each release
> and release final within *one* month from RC1)
> 2) release once (by year/two years) have RC for months
>
> I would vote for 1) ideally

I'm very far from being involved enough to have any say on this, but I 
would just like to point out that if you add to the equation the fact 
that GRASS has a tradition of stability that you can trust, and if we 
want to honor that tradition, frequent releases imply quite a lot of man 
power in order to get things stable.

It's the old Debian vs Ubuntu debate and although I see some of the 
merits of Ubuntu, I do value Debian's release when ready philosophy 
(although I know this is evolving) and think that Ubuntu's fixed release 
schedule creates lot's of issues.

So, I think before deciding on a specific release frequency, it might be 
more important to decide on a clear release procedure, i.e. issues such 
as (just brainstorming here):

- who / what decides whether something is a blocker ?
- can anyone overrule that decision ?
- possibly: once a release candidate has been tagged, have any commit go 
through a control process in order to avoid to many unecessary and 
disturbing commits
- etc.

Even though this might need more man power in the short run, it could 
ease the work load in the long run.

I also do not think that the alternative between 1) and 2) is the only 
one. I.e. you could have less frequent releases, but still short RC 
periods. Those two issues are not necessarily linked.


Just my 2 c and now going back to preparing GIS and Remote sensing exams 
for my students using GRASS...

Moritz