gEDA-dev: libgeda library version & stable branch

[Peter TB Brett]

Hi folks,

Does anybody know how many bits ldd uses to hold the library version?

If it's 8, we've got a problem; we're on 29.0.0 and we haven't even got to a 
1.0 release yet!

Thisbrings me on to a proposal which Peter Clifton and I were discussing the 
other day: the release of gEDA just out had a lot of stability, speed and 
usability improvements, without much in the way of major feature flux, and 
therefore would be a good candidate for a 1.0 release candidate.  However, 
people *cough* are now merging lots of new features with the associated 
potential breakage.

I think we should consider forking off a 1.0.x stable branch at this point, 
which would be bugfix-only, and would use .so version 29.x and Guile 1.6.  
Releases would occur when either a serious crash bug is fixed, or sufficient 
fixes accumulate to appear worthwhile.

Unstable development would take place in CVS HEAD as the 1.1.x version, 
using .so version 30.x and Guile 1.8, with much more frequent releases so 
that people can destruction test the cutting edge features.  I would suggest 
monthly releases, no matter what state the tree is in, without too much in 
the way of diligence w.r.t. release notes etc.

By the time 1.1.x has got to a reasonably stable plateau, 1.0.x should 
(hopefully) be a low-maintenance branch, and then 1.2.x can become the stable 
and 1.3.x the unstable.

This would mean we need a -stable maintainer -- any volunteers?  They would 
have to be diligent about backporting bug fixes, and ruthless about keeping 
new features/API changes out.  I nominate sdb for the role, because I think 
he's got a really good awareness of what tends to break things for people not 
on cutting-edge "hacker" distributions like FC6.

Thoughts?

Peter


-- 
Fisher Society                              http://tinyurl.com/o39w2
CU Small-Bore Club                          http://tinyurl.com/mwrc9

      09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0            peter-b.co.uk
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