I don't disagree with RC's entirely, or the mechanism you suggest, but that isn't what I read as proposed.
Our issue is that every httpd must be distinguished, we won't ship four tarballs all claiming 2.4.34 (GA). Which one is the person complaining about? Are we back to SHA signature of the source tarball (that isn't even assuredly what they built the binary from?) We can decorate the rc in the versioning, but that isn't part of 2.4.x API, unless we swap out the "-dev" string tag for an "-rc#" value. It is not reasonable to lock a branch for an indeterminate length of time. Branching the RC into what becomes the final release, and making it painful to backport first to 2.4.x and finally 2.4.n-rc branch might help discourage disruptive backports, but there is no suggestion yet of what is acceptable, either on such a frozen main branch or rc branch. In fact our policy reflects that two competing release candidates is an entire valid and even expected situation, and any process that further blocks this should be firmly rebuffed. As it reads so far the proposal is the way we do things, now conserving subversion numbers as precious, if only to reenforce a stake in the ground that version major and minor numbers are similarly precious, (which they are not.) With the addition of freezing changes on 2.4.x branch for a time we succeed in impeading progress towards version .next, while not otherwise changing the status quo. What you suggest is yet another thing, based on forking the RC release branch, and I haven't seen that accepted by the committee yet. On Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 16:43 David Zuelke <dzue...@salesforce.com> wrote: > The main difference is that you have a release branch in which fixes > to bugs or regressions found during 2.4.x RCs can be made, while work > on 2.4.(x+1) can continue in the main 2.4 branch. > > Another benefit is that people who do automated builds (e.g. me) can > grep for "RC" in the version number and have it fetch from > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/httpd/ instead. > > The changelogs are more readable as well, because it's obvious which > intermediary RC releases belong together. If you look at > https://archive.apache.org/dist/httpd/CHANGES_2.4, there is zero > indication that e.g. 2.4.31 was never released. > > > On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 10:53 PM, William A Rowe Jr <wr...@rowe-clan.net> > wrote: > > What possible improvement occurs if there is no branch discipline > > on 2.4.x development? We just echoed effectively your proposal, > > using numbers rather than RC designations, and still .33 has this > > host of issues. With no release since .29, the branch was in this > > continuous state of flux between 2.4.30 and 2.4.33. Testing the > > 2.4.30 release did not result in a better, eventual 2.4.31, testing > > .31 didn't result in a better .32, and even the final .33 had its own > > issues. > > > > This would have been precisely the same outcome between RC1 > > and RC4, if the project doesn't keep the branch stable for even the > > week or months required to craft a successful release, and if that > > occurs on 2.4.x branch, that is an interruption of effort towards > > release n+1, frustrating contributors. > > > > Note we don't publish anything not approved by the PMC, so > > there would be the same "vote" to release an RC. > > > > Net <-> net, this is the status quo which failed us so badly this > > past winter (now with alphabetic characters!) > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 10:51 AM, Jim Jagielski <j...@jagunet.com> wrote: > >> The idea is encouraging and fostering a broader test audience. > >> > >> > >> On Apr 19, 2018, at 11:44 AM, William A Rowe Jr <wr...@rowe-clan.net> > wrote: > >> > >> Unless I misunderstand... > >> > >> 2.4.30-RC1 (rejected) > >> 2.4.30-RC2 (our .31, rejected) > >> 2.4.30-RC3 (our .32, rejected) > >> 2.4.30-RC4 -> 2.4.30 GA (our 2.4.33 release) > >> > >> With all the associated changes in between, no actual change in branch > >> management, scope, feature creep, etc? > >> > >> This sounds like dressing up the status quo with different labels. > >> > >> > >> > >> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 10:37 Jim Jagielski <j...@jagunet.com> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > On Apr 19, 2018, at 11:26 AM, William A Rowe Jr <wr...@rowe-clan.net > > > >>> > wrote: > >>> > > >>> > On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 10:11 AM, Jim Jagielski <j...@jagunet.com> > wrote: > >>> >> With all this in mind, should we try to set things up so that the > >>> >> next release cycle uses the concept of RCs? > >>> >> > >>> >> If so, and if people like, I can come up with a baseline > >>> >> proposal on the process for us to debate and come to > >>> >> some consensus on. > >>> > > >>> > Would you define an RC? What changes are allowable in that branch? > >>> > >>> > >>> The idea is that right now we take an existing state in SVN > >>> and tag it as, for example, 2.4.121. We then vote on that tag > >>> and the artifacts released from that tag. No work is done on > >>> the 2.4 branch while testing is done so that we ensure that > >>> the SVN rev on branch == the one for the tag > >> > >> > >> Not necessary to freeze; a tag can always be applied to an older rev. > >> > >>> Instead, we tag at 2.4.121-RC1. We do the exact same. If the > >>> vote does not pass, we continue on the 2.4 branch, fix the > >>> issues, and then tag a 2.4.121-RC2. Rinse and repeat. > >>> > >>> If the vote does pass we tag the branch, which is still == RC# > >>> at this stage, as 2.4.121 (ap_release.h mods included). We > >>> still even at this stage test and vote on the release as we have > >>> for decades. If it passes, we release. If not, for some reason, > >>> we have burned the 2.4.121 release, bump to 2.4.122 and GOTO > >>> the above. > >>> > >>> This is the overall idea... more flesh to be added. > >> > >> >
