On Sunday 23 April 2006 18:13, Ales Hvezda wrote: > Hi Dan, > > [snip] > > >easy, there have been no "releases". I've just periodically been making > >snapshot releases which are releases in the sense that I verify that > >'make distcheck' works for me which usually catches glaring errors in > >the build system and makes sure that the snapshot tarball will have all > >the files needed to build. Also I've been branching the sources and > >setting the version number to the snapshot date. Other than that I have > >not been doing anything extra. > > > >Some day we might distinguish between true releases and snapshots but so > >far we haven't. > > I haven't done a "release" of gEDA/gaf since, oh, 1998. I sorta > like the whole dated snapshot approach, since the version number presents > some sort of a tie to reality (since it's a date, you know how old the > software is). I haven't found any major problems/objections with this > approach.
The problem is that if a first time user picks up a snapshot that is broken--such as a PCB snapshot that won't load layout files--he probably isn't going to be using the tool for too long. With gEDA, at least there is Stuart's wonderful installation ISO. It goes a long way to giving a new user an excellent initial experience. If they know to look for it there, Stuart has provided PCB as well, but Google searches for 'pcb install' or 'pcb release' did not list Stuart's website in the top 100. My suggestion is that the PCB sourceforge page indicate that the snapshots given are alpha or beta snapshots and for a stable release they should see Stuart's ISO. We just built the latest snapshot of PCB and it is broken with our configure options. Patches coming tomorrow. Regards, Daniel
