Re: 1.9.0-alpha2 up for testing/signing

Ivan Zhakov wrote:
> I didn't vote for 1.9.0-alpha2 because I believe that current trunk
> should not be released even with alpha label. [...]

Hi, Ivan.

I agree with some of what you say, but not all of it.

> The only big feature is fsfs7, but the past shows that users even
> didn't try Subversion on client before final release, so expecting
> that some sysadmin will try alpha on server doesn't make sense.

It's true that users don't test alpha releases very much. I believe you
that sysadmins will test the server side even less. But I don't agree
that "expecting that some sysadmin will try alpha on server doesn't make
sense". If we don't release it, then nobody will try it; if we do
release it, then some sysadmin *might* try it.

There must be at least
thousands of sysadmins running Subversion, some of whom will see the
alpha release. It's not totally unreasonable that some might test it.

> Even more I believe that fsfs7 stuff and log addressing stuff should
> be reverted from trunk and such significant fsfs format changes should
> be implemented in fsx to give users a choice: use stable and proven
> format or something really new and never tested.

I agree users must always have the option of a server that's "stable and proven". I take your concern seriously, but I look at it in a different way. You're proposing that users should have the following options:

  * experimental (1.9 FSX, lots of new stuff)

  * stable (1.9 FSFS, approximately same as 1.8, minor changes)

Users already have a stable server: it's called 1.8, or 1.7 or whatever version has been around for long enough to satisfy their definition of "stable".

So another way of looking at the options that we can provide is:

  * experimental (1.9 FSX, lots of new stuff)

  * latest (1.9.0 FSFS, a balance between significant improvements and reasonable stability)

  * very stable (1.8.x series, for now, until a year or so has passed and the user then considers the 1.9.x series to be "very stable")

It seems that we're currently looking at the user's options that second way. And that seems OK to me.

- Julian
Received on 2014-04-02 13:16:10 CEST