So under this proposal, what's the difference between a major and minor release?
-Yonik http://www.lucidimagination.com On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 6:37 AM, Michael Busch<busch...@gmail.com> wrote: > Probably everyone is thinking right now "Oh no! Not again!". I admit I > didn't fully read the incredibly long recent thread about > backwards-compatibility, so maybe what I'm about to propose has been > proposed already. In that case my apologies in advance. > > Rather than discussing our current backwards-compatibility policy > again, I'd like to make here a concrete proposal for changing the policy > after Lucene 3.0 is released. > > I'll call X.Y -> X+1.0 a 'major release', X.Y -> X.Y+1 a > 'minor release' and X.Y.Z -> X.Y.Z+1 a 'bugfix release'. (we can later > use different names; just for convenience here...) > > 1. The file format backwards-compatiblity policy will remain unchanged; > i.e. Lucene X.Y supports reading all indexes written with Lucene > X-1.Y. That means Lucene 4.0 will not have to be able to read 2.x > indexes. > > 2. Deprecated public and protected APIs can be removed if they have > been released in at least one major or minor release. E.g. an 3.1 > API can be released as deprecated in 3.2 and removed in 3.3 or 4.0 > (if 4.0 comes after 3.2). > > 3. No public or protected APIs are changed in a bugfix release; except > if a severe bug can't be changed otherwise. > > 4. Each release will have release notes with a new section > "Incompatible changes", which lists, as the names says, all changes that > break backwards compatibility. The list should also have information > about how to convert to the new API. I think the eclipse releases > have such a release notes section. > > > The big change here apparently is 2. Consider the current situation: > We can release e.g. the new TokenStream API with 2.9; then we can > remove it a month later in 3.0, while still complying with our current > backwards-compatibility policy. A transition period of one month is > very short for such an important API. On the other hand, a transition > period of presumably >2 years, until 4.0 is released, seems very long > to stick with a deprecated API that clutters the APIs and docs. With > the proposed change, we couldn't do that. Given our current release > schedule, the transition period would at least be 6-9 months, which > seems a very reasonable timeframe. > > We should also not consider 2. as a must. I.e. we don't *have* to > deprecate after one major or minor release already. We could for a > very popular API like the TokenStream API send a mail to java-user, > asking if people need more transition time and be flexible. > > I think this policy is much more dynamic and flexible, but should > still give our users enough confidence. It also removes the need to > do things just for the sake of the current policy rather than because > they make the most sense, like our somewhat goofy X.9 releases. :) > > Just to make myself clear: I think we should definitely stick with our > 2.9 and 3.0 plans and change the policy afterwards. > > My +1 to all 4 points above. > > -Michael > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: java-dev-unsubscr...@lucene.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: java-dev-h...@lucene.apache.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: java-dev-unsubscr...@lucene.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: java-dev-h...@lucene.apache.org
