On Sun, 19 Feb 2006, Mark Mitchell wrote: | In the past, we've had a confusing situation for users, in which | "upgrading" from one branch to another could result in known | regressions. In particular, consider our current situation: | | * GCC 4.0.2 is the latest release on the 4.0 branch. | | * GCC 4.1 will be released soon. | | * GCC 4.0.3 will be released at some time in the future. | | Suppose that after GCC 4.1, we fix a bug, applying the fix to both the | 4.0 and 4.1 branches. Then, we release GCC 4.0.3, before GCC 4.1.1. | The result is then that a user who uses GCC 4.0.3, and upgrades to GCC | 4.1.0, sees a regression for the bug in question. That seems confusing. | | We didn't use to have this problem because we use to have only one | active release branch. However, for a while now, we've had at least | two, and sometimes three, active release branches, responding to a | demand from some users for longer lifetimes for our release branches. | So, now we have the problem outlined above. | | The best solution I can think of is to synchronize releases across | active branches so that GCC 4.0.3 and GCC 4.1.0 would be released | simultaneously. The other option would be to postpone applying patches | on the 4.0 branch until after a 4.1 release has been made with that | patch applied, but that seems administratively difficult.
I agree with the last observation. | As RM, I am willing to manage the releases of two active branches | together. I've already announced that 4.0.3 would be released shortly | after 4.1.0, so I think we can achieve near-simultaneous release of | 4.0.3 with 4.1.0, and the 3.4.x branch is official dead at this point. | However, assuming that Gaby plans to take over the 4.0.x branch (does | he?), then I would need Gaby's buy-in to ensure simultaneity going forward. I agree with your general plan. I planned to release GCC-3.4.6 at the end of this month. So, I think we can proceed with for your outlined plan for GCC-4.0.x and upward. -- Gaby
