Karl Fogel wrote:
> "Mark Phippard" <markphip_at_gmail.com> writes:
>> No one wants to see us release software with bugs in it, but I think
>> our goal should be to have a great GA release, not great alpha
>> releases. The point of the alpha release is to get users to try it
>> and report back on the problems that our test suite does not catch.
>> We can't do that if we do not release them. Using this same line of
>> reasoning, I would rather see us release these without the formal
>> signature process. If a bad bug that is fixable is found, then just
>> roll a new release. If we are not doing all the signature stuff it
>> should be relatively easy to get a new release tarball up. After all,
>> Hyrum is currently posting nightly tarballs. I think the benefit of
>> the named alpha/beta releases is that the it easily shows up in svn
>> --version and that makes it easy to talk to users and tell them when a
>> problem is known and has been fixed.
>
> For alphas, I think Mark's ideas are quite sane.
>
> In fact, the demarcation between "alpha" and "beta" can be that we
> sign the betas (and don't call them official until signed). The RC
> tarballs would follow the same rules as betas, it's just that the
> understanding is it's more serious, because it's going to be the
> actual same bits as the release if it passes muster.
>
> (The above makes me wonder if there's any real need for betas at all,
> but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.)
>
> Anyone object if I adjust
>
> http://subversion.tigris.org/hacking.html#release-stabilization
>
> to reflect this philosophy of getting alphas out for testing more
> easily? (Hyrum should still roll a new one if he can, I think, but
> that doesn't mean testing should stop until then, that's all.)
I'm happy to roll and post alphas on a frequent and regular basis; the
process is quite automated now. I do think that it is a benefit to both
ourselves, as well as our users, to get alphas out quickly, and removing
the signing requirement would be a way to do that. I'd still like
people to sanity check any proposed release, even alphas, before they go
public. I could possibly do this by just pinging IRC and having folks
do a simple pass through the test suite before we announce.
-Hyrum
Received on 2008-02-26 03:43:40 CET