gEDA-dev: Version numbering

[Peter Clifton]

On Sat, 2007-06-30 at 07:34 +0100, Peter TB Brett wrote:
> On Friday 29 June 2007 05:38:40 Dan McMahill wrote:

> > I don't mind making the switch but I worry that what will happen is
> > we'll see rare "stable releases" and we'll end up always saying "try a
> > development release" or "get whats in git".  And I really don't want to
> > bounce back and forth.

[snip]

> There is a rapid accumulation of of changes happening in the unstable branch.  
> In particular, there are several minor bugs & security holes fixed by my 
> component library work which can't be backported without making stable look 
> pretty much the same as unstable!  It's _really_ important for such a 
> (relatively) small project that the features being put into unstable get 
> _used_.  We don't have the manpower or infrastructure to do a proper QA 
> within the project's active developers, and user feedback is _very_ important 
> to us.

> I would therefore support encouraging people not to package unstable if, and 
> only if, the unstable branch gets stabilised and released _frequently_ (say 
> ~3 months).  Nevertheless, development snapshots would still be a good thing 
> for people who, for instance, don't like using git but want to test unstable 
> for us.

User testing is really important, and I've not got a good feel for how
many users / developers actively work with and test the contents of GIT.
My guess is not that many, and I expect that many users will only be
enticed to do so by new features / fixes, or if they get a new stable
version pushed out as a packaged product.

I'm all for doing another stable release soon, (personally I want to
complete the non-modal attribute editor before then). This should be
fine so long as we think the code-base is tested well, and won't
introduce too many new bugs.

Can we have a "hands-up" who many people are actively using the git
master version of gEDA to confirm that it "seems" stable so far?

I'll not currently count myself in that group, but might be able to do
so again soon.

Best wishes

-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)