Hi all, This is a dual announcement of both a new milestone version of Conkeror and a change to a new version system. If you look at our git repository, you will see two version number changes from today. First we incremented the version to 0.9.4, and then changed it again to 1.0pre. Here's what's up with that:
We decided to switch to a more traditional version system, the kind where you set a target version for release, then work toward it through stages 'pre', 'alpha', 'beta', and release candidates, though not *necessarily* all of those stages. We hope that switching to this system will clear up the confusion that people have expressed with regard to our old version system, which was a simple milestone system. The new system lets users and developers know at a glance the current state of development, and the relationships between different branches. Thus Conkeror master branch is now version 1.0pre, and another branch I've been working on, currently called "decoupling" will in the near future become 2.0pre. More specific information about the roadmap can be found here: http://conkeror.org/Roadmap Now, why did we go to version 0.9.4, only to change it immediately to 1.0pre? This was to give package maintainers the opportunity to release a package based on 0.9.4, which should be considered the last "release" until we get to something like 1.0pre1 or 1.0a1. Here is how to think about this system as we are using it: * Changing the version to something that ends in "pre" or "a" or "b" marks the beginning of a stage of development. It basically says we are now working toward whatever the version number is. Think of it as a label on a span of time, rather than a particular point in time. * Changing the version number to something that ends in "pre#", "a#", "b#", or "rc#" (where # is a number) marks a specific point in time. It says we have met certain goals, so we're marking this spot as version such-and-such for wider distribution. If a package maintainer needs to make a package for a between-versions commit, he or she can make a version string like this: "1.0pre+git20110904". That says, this is during the 1.0pre epoch, but also contains additional patches up to the given date. The other aspect of adopting this version system is that it will give us the option to backport patches, if we find ourselves in the position of maintaining both a 1.0 line and a 2.0 line for a little while, which we might, because cool as 2.0 is, there are blocking problems in it right now that will probably hold it up for a while. Another question people are likely to ask is, does this mean we're going to have timed releases? No, the release schedule will be based, as ever, purely on volunteer time. Will we have official tarballs? Probably, at least for the #.# releases. Does this all make sense to everybody? Thanks for your attention. -- John Foerch _______________________________________________ Conkeror mailing list [email protected] https://www.mozdev.org/mailman/listinfo/conkeror
