[Qgis-community-team] QGIS stable, release, master, development, nightly build, latest, unstable etc etc

[Ramon Andiñach]

On 29/09/2013, at 21:27 , Richard Duivenvoorde wrote:

> Hi Lists,
> 
> while rewriting the download/install page for the website, I see there
> are A LOT different 'versions/namings' for installers (see subject).
> 
> BUT actually we only have
> 
> - a stable version: QGIS 2.0
> - a development version (being build from latest master)
> 
> I think to be clear to our (new) users I think we should in all our
> communication (github, website, ....) just use TWO terms (if possible).
> 
> I propose:
> 
> QGIS stable
> QGIS development (build)
> 
> Anybody against this, or has better ideas?
> 
> /me do not want to start a huge discussion about this. Feel free to veto
> my choices and propose two(!) others.

Wholeheartedly agree,

but, at the risk of being the one that turns it into a discussion, I'm curious. What do QGIS as installed by OSGeo4W packages and QGIS installed by ubuntugis-unstable ppa packages classify as?

If I understand correctly, the QGIS package itself uses the stable code, but the dependencies are updated as new versions become available. Over time they are recompiled to fit these dependencies and diverge further from the original QGIS release. As shown on this list, both of these versions are may not stable at these times of updating.

Would a note warning of such a possibility be enough? 
I know there's a note to this effect on to the ubuntu-gis repository website. I don't recall one on the OSGeo4W website. 
I'm also not sure how you'd go about explaining it to (new) OSGeo4W users, however in both cases the QGIS downloads page tells you how to download directly without mentioning this possibility or pointing at the website note.

-ramon.
(Apologies if I set the discussion off).