On 30 April 2013 15:51, Gilles <gil...@harfang.homelinux.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:36:10 -0700, Phil Steitz wrote:
>
>> On 4/29/13 11:49 PM, Thomas Vandahl wrote:
>>
>>> On 30.04.2013 00:01, Gilles wrote:
>>>
>>>> If someone doesn't develop a Commons component, he is not in the
>>>> "developer"
>>>> category for that component.
>>>> If his app _uses_ a Commons component, he is a "user" of that
>>>> component.
>>>> This kind of users should indeed be encouraged to test snapshots,
>>>> and
>>>> report
>>>> problems _before_ an official release is made.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I completely agree with you. Looking at the Commons components,
>>> all "users" are also "developers" one way or another, as the
>>> components are merley libraries, not applications.
>>>
>>> From what I understand of the Maven idea, snapshots are *the* way
>>> binaries can be distributed for testing - including separate
>>> storage in a separate repository. The whole repository
>>> infrastructure was made for this. The snapshot status carries the
>>> clear message that this binary is not for production use and can
>>> change its API anytime. So why not use this?
>>>
>> The problem with "publicising" snapshots is that it makes it look
>> like they are actual releases. This has been discussed a lot over
>> the years, and we have settled on the policy [1] that anything that
>> we encourage anyone beyond the developers actively following the dev
>> list ("developers" per the definition above), *must* be treated as a
>> release.
>>
>> [1]
>> http://www.apache.org/dev/**release.html#what<http://www.apache.org/dev/release.html#what>
>>
>
> Thanks for this clarification.
>
> Unfortunately, the description of "release" does not provide a solution
> to the problem posed.
> Essentially, it only forbids to ask for user feedback on "unreleased" code.
>
>
Not entirely; if a user is participating in development via bug reports and
patches, they can be directed to snapshots for testing.
> The only way out is to release:
> "If this policy seems inconvenient, then release more often."
>
> But release what? "alpha", "beta"? Those are not defined there.
> If such releases are done, then what policy wrt to user support?
> E.g. do we _have_ to (quickly) create bug fix releases for such releases
> (known to be more fragile)?
>
> This looks much more complicated than just asking interested parties to
> "manually" download a nightly build (with all the caveats and warnings),
> temporarily add it to their classpath and look for unexpected problems.
>
>
It's not either/or here.
Snapshots are not prohibited.
It's possible for interested parties to use snapshots.
> Gilles
>
>
>
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