On 05/22/2012 04:39 AM, Vincent Massol wrote: > > On May 21, 2012, at 9:22 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote: > >> Hi devs, >> >> Given that each development cycle usually starts with bigger changes and >> ends with a couple of stabilization releases, IMHO it makes sense to keep >> the last branch of a cycle maintained for a while longer. >> >> Our current strategy is to only support two branches at a time, the one >> being developed, and the one before it. This means that as soon as [N].0 is >> released, [N-1].5.x is dropped. However, the [N-1].5.x branch is much more >> stable and polished than the fresh new start of the cycle, so more people >> would be interested in using that stable version, especially in enterprise >> situations. Thus, I propose to amend our support rule to keep the >> end-of-cycle branch active for, let's say, 6 months. Still, this means only >> that we backport major or critical issues, which would improve the stability >> of that branch, without any new features. > > I don't like it because the point of the 2 branches only was twofold: > > 1) Force users to move to the newer version and thus help us test it. Users > get XWiki for free and it's good that they contribute something back. Testing > is contributing back. Your proposal basically means that you're telling > users: "Don't use the new N.0 release because it's not ultra stable yet, > instead, stay on N-1.5.x and wait 6 months. With this strategy we'll have > less people testing N.x and 6 months down the road N+1.x will be less tested. > > 2) It's more work. We already have a hard time maintaining N.x. For example > right now we have an important bug that was fixed in 4.0.1 and we're not even > releasing 4.0.1 when we should. Also we're fixing bugs on 4.1.x that we're > not backporting to 4.0. > > Also note that this means less work done on the N.x and N+1.x and our dev > team is already very small (about 5-6 active committers)… > > I think I'd prefer a slightly different strategy: > * As a team we keep the same rule as now, i.e. only 2 branches (dev branch + > stable) > * If a given committer wants to maintain another branch himself a bit more, > he can do it but he should state it on a case by case basis so that others > don't delete it and then it's up to him to backport stuff he wants to the > branch and close it when it's no longer needed.
I agree, I'm not opposed to old versions being supported but I don't think it's the community's job. I wouldn't expect Linus Torvolds to support 2.4.x, but RedHat can. Caleb > > WDYT? > > Thanks > -Vincent > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
