The next steps (towards 0.8.0)

[Sven Herzberg]

Hey dudes,

  so, we finally got 0.7.0 out and Fredrik got his subversion account.
What do you think of the next steps? I'd go on like this:

Keep on developing bug fixes and improvements for 0.7.0 in 0.7.x
versions. Once we feel like it, we can try to come down to a stable
release 0.8.0. Then we can continue bug fixing for that version in a
dedicated 0.8.x branch, while we start real development for 0.10.0 (or
1.0) in a 0.9.x series.

This would allow several things:
1. more releases: some of you may have noticed, the latest release got
quite some nice feedback on the bug tracker; we should release more
often, to invite more people to test unstable passepartout versions.
2. we can start larger changes to the internals when we have a dedicated
unstable series. The unstable release can come down to a certain
stability when we start focusing on the next stable release. GNOME has
made a really good progress with this kind of development.

In my optinion we should look at some larger distributions (Fedora,
Ubuntu, Suse) and check when they will freeze the source code versions
of their packages, so we can get 0.8.0 distributed pretty widely (to get
much more feedback).

Commants? Flames?

Regards,
  Sven
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[Steven M. Ottens-4]

Hi,

I've been a long follower of passepartout and regrettably have very  
silent. But I'm happy 0.7.0 is out :)

On Aug 9, 2007, at 12:03 AM, Sven Herzberg wrote:

> Hey dudes,
>
>   so, we finally got 0.7.0 out and Fredrik got his subversion account.
> What do you think of the next steps? I'd go on like this:
>
> Keep on developing bug fixes and improvements for 0.7.0 in 0.7.x
> versions. Once we feel like it, we can try to come down to a stable
> release 0.8.0. Then we can continue bug fixing for that version in a
> dedicated 0.8.x branch, while we start real development for 0.10.0 (or
> 1.0) in a 0.9.x series.

Right, to get it clear; this means that the only branch there is is a  
development branch until 0.8.x is released?
Since you need to start somewhere this sounds like a sensible  
approach. I prefer the Gnome approach over the current linux kernel  
approach since it's easier to grasp for the user, although slightly  
more complicated for the developer since it needs to maintain two  
branches

>
> This would allow several things:
> 1. more releases: some of you may have noticed, the latest release got
> quite some nice feedback on the bug tracker; we should release more
> often, to invite more people to test unstable passepartout versions.

true

> 2. we can start larger changes to the internals when we have a  
> dedicated
> unstable series. The unstable release can come down to a certain
> stability when we start focusing on the next stable release. GNOME has
> made a really good progress with this kind of development.
>
also true. It would be a good idea to create a wish list of changes/
items/features for the 0.9/0.10 while the 0.7/0.8 development is  
still going on. This way it's easy to pick a subset of this list as a  
goal for 0.10 and don't waste time discussing what's next.

> In my optinion we should look at some larger distributions (Fedora,
> Ubuntu, Suse) and check when they will freeze the source code versions
> of their packages, so we can get 0.8.0 distributed pretty widely  
> (to get
> much more feedback).

Ubuntu uses a schedule of 6 month, I believe Fedora does the same,  
don't know about SuSE. The first two are heavily influenced by the  
tight GNOME schedule. Going for a 6 month release schedule in your  
own free time is hard, i know from experience, so I suggest you go  
for a birelease schedule: once a year. Unless you do have time to  
work on your project (unlike me ;)
It is a good idea to sync releases with the normal GNOME releases,  
since the major distros sync with GNOME.

>
> Commants? Flames?
no flames from me

Regards,
Steven
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[Fredrik Arnerup]

> Keep on developing bug fixes and improvements for 0.7.0 in 0.7.x
> versions. Once we feel like it, we can try to come down to a stable
> release 0.8.0. Then we can continue bug fixing for that version in a
> dedicated 0.8.x branch, while we start real development for 0.10.0 (or
> 1.0) in a 0.9.x series.

Are you saying even numbers should be stable and odd numbers unstable?
I could go with that.

I think we should do new development in the trunk and merge bugfixes into
a 0.7 branch which should be branched from the 0.7.0 tag. When 0.7 is
stable enough, it gets promoted to 0.8.0. After that, as soon as we have a
trunk that compiles and has some new features, we can release it as 0.9.0.

Is that close to what you mean?

> In my optinion we should look at some larger distributions (Fedora,
> Ubuntu, Suse) and check when they will freeze the source code versions
> of their packages, so we can get 0.8.0 distributed pretty widely (to get
> much more feedback).

Maybe. As long as we don't feel the pressure to call it stable before it is.

/Fredrik

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[Sven Herzberg]

Fredrik Arnerup wrote:

>> Keep on developing bug fixes and improvements for 0.7.0 in 0.7.x
>> versions. Once we feel like it, we can try to come down to a stable
>> release 0.8.0. Then we can continue bug fixing for that version in a
>> dedicated 0.8.x branch, while we start real development for 0.10.0 (or
>> 1.0) in a 0.9.x series.
>>    
>
> Are you saying even numbers should be stable and odd numbers unstable?
> I could go with that.
>  

Yes. That's a very predictable scheme for testers.

> I think we should do new development in the trunk and merge bugfixes into
> a 0.7 branch which should be branched from the 0.7.0 tag. When 0.7 is
> stable enough, it gets promoted to 0.8.0.

Hmm? So you want to have two active branches now (0.7 and 0.9)? I
wouldn't vote for this approach. Because if we do bug fixing only on
0.7.0, then why not call it 0.8.0? I think it's pretty stable and the
bug reports that we're receiving are pretty useful (especially the ones
from the MacOS X and Windows porters).

Still, these bugs are not so critical that I'd say »well, 0.7.0 isn't
for end users yet«.

> After that, as soon as we have a
> trunk that compiles and has some new features, we can release it as 0.9.0.
>  

Shouldn't trunk *always* compile?

> Is that close to what you mean?
>  

Almost. I wanted to focus on bug fixing and getting feature requests for
the next months (I also have some small improvements in some local git
branches).

I wouldn't want to start hacking on 0.9 before releasing 0.8.0, because
this would pull off some hacking time of 0.7 (which would get into 0.9 -
which would be nowhere close to what users want).

>> In my optinion we should look at some larger distributions (Fedora,
>> Ubuntu, Suse) and check when they will freeze the source code versions
>> of their packages, so we can get 0.8.0 distributed pretty widely (to get
>> much more feedback).
>>    
>
> Maybe. As long as we don't feel the pressure to call it stable before it is.
>  

Just as I said above, I think 0.7.0 is pretty stable, it needs some more
stuff though.

Regards,
  Sven
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[Sven Herzberg]

Sven Herzberg wrote:
> In my optinion we should look at some larger distributions (Fedora,
> Ubuntu, Suse) and check when they will freeze the source code versions
> of their packages, so we can get 0.8.0 distributed pretty widely (to get
> much more feedback).
>  

So, I looked at these three and I realized this:

*Ubuntu:* ubuntu already ships 0.7.0 in their current development
distribution, we should just keep pinging them when our bug fix releases
get out.

*Fedora:* doesn't ship passepartout yet.

*OpenSUSE:* doesn't seem to ship passepartout as well.

So, the current state is that 0.7.0 will go into Ubuntu and nowhere
else. As we're currently in the version freeze period of all of these
three distributions, we should request passepartout packages for the
next versions of them.

Regards,
  Sven
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