[OpenLayers-Dev] maintenance releases

[Ivan Grcic]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 12:00 AM, Zac Spitzer <zac.spitzer at gmail.com> wrote:
> i've always used trunk myself + plus some patches
>
same here, trunk + patches on some apps (on some 2.8 + patches), so it
got kinda little bit messy with time :)

cheers

> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:21 AM, Christopher Schmidt
> <crschmidt at metacarta.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 01:00:12PM -0600, Tim Schaub wrote:
>>> Hey-
>>>
>>> We periodically discuss releasing on a fixed schedule.  Though a few
>>> releases have come close to sticking to a schedule, my impression is
>>> that it has been a tough to pull off.  It is also my impression that the
>>> release process feels onerous enough to enough people that we are
>>> collectively avoiding it.
>>>
>>> I'm interested in discussing doing more "maintenance" releases between
>>> minor releases.  What exactly would change about the release process [1]
>>> I'm not sure, but the goal would be to make it less work overall.
>>>
>>> While this might seem extreme, I'm curious what people would think about
>>> kicking out maintenance releases *without* going through the release
>>> candidate cycle.  Taking this further, a maintenance release manager
>>> could decide to stick to a schedule and release even if there were known
>>> regressions.
>>>
>>> While the result may be something of questionable value, I do think it
>>> would bring some benefits.  My impression is that there are a lot of
>>> people running applications off the trunk currently.  I also imagine a
>>> fair number are running "sandbox" functionality or their own patched
>>> versions.  Having more frequent releases would not be that much
>>> different than pegging applications to a specific version of the trunk.
>>>   I think all would agree this is safer than having an application run
>>> off the head revision.
>>>
>>> This would also have the benefit for contributors of more quickly seeing
>>> their contribution in an official release - potentially encouraging more
>>> contributions.
>>>
>>> Obviously there would be details to work out about the process, but I
>>> would suggest a pared down version of the major/minor release process -
>>> with leeway for the maintenance release manager to decide on some
>>> specifics (e.g. if all tests pass on this date, bump tickets, release,
>>> and make notes about known issues).
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> I'd be interested in what number of people are running applications off
>> trunk. I'm sure that some of our contributors are -- for example, anyone
>> who has written a patch is probably at least running with a version which
>> includes their patch -- but my experience is that I don't see a lot of people
>> asking for help who aren't running on 2.8 currently.
>>
>> Generally, when I start seeing that change is when I start suggesting
>> it's time for a release :)
>>
>> I'm not against maintenance releases, though. When OpenLayers was under
>> more rapid development, the longer process was more neccesary. Now that
>> we're in a mostly static state -- minor features and bugfixes, rather than
>> significant new core developments -- there's not as much risk to including
>> most of the current changes to trunk in a release without a ton of testing.
>>
>> Regards,
>> --
>> Christopher Schmidt
>> MetaCarta
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dev mailing list
>> Dev at openlayers.org
>> http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Zac Spitzer -
> http://zacster.blogspot.com
> +61 405 847 168
> _______________________________________________
> Dev mailing list
> Dev at openlayers.org
> http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
>



-- 
Ivan Grcic