On Oct 17, 2009, at 3:44 AM, Greg Stein wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> We haven't run any alphas or betas since 1.0. However, I'm thinking it
> may be prudent to pull out the "beta" label for the 1.7 release. I
> think it may be a good idea to get some broad usage (on the client)
> from a larger userbase for a little while before we ship out the 1.7
> release.
We actually ran a beta for 1.5, and it was an utter disaster. Nobody
wanted to risk their working copies on a 'beta', there wasn't a clear
definition of what separated a beta from a release candidate, and
third parties (such as Subclipse and TortoiseSVN) were understandably
hesitant to cut a beta of their own based upon our still-moving API
and WC format targets. Since most people get their copy of Subversion
from third-party sources, and not directly from the project, this last
point pretty much killed the beta before it started.
> We're probably a couple months before even *talking* about a release,
> so we have time to discuss this option. But I just wanted to throw
> this little hand-grenade out earlier, rather than later.
The above being said, I would *love* to ship stable pre-release code
and have people give it a whirl. I know that I'll be encouraging my
clients to give pre-1.7 a thorough testing, since they have usage
scenarios far beyond what I typically encounter.
The key to doing a beta, IMO, is to be very confident that our wc
formats are stable, and especially that the APIs are stable, so that
other clients will also release betas. (But then we get the faction
that says "why not just cut a release candidate and get the soak
started?") We have to ensure that binaries are available, not just
our tarballs.
-Hyrum
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Received on 2009-10-17 15:27:46 CEST