> We decided to maintain packages outside of the release cycle, so that > people always get the latest package updates, even when using the > release branch.
Let me tell you this story first :) At Ninux.org we tried to mantain a meta-package of OpenWRT, that was supposed to configure the router to be used in our Community Network. We based the meta-package on trunk, because the 7.09 build was not working anymore, in the sense that some packages were not longer compatible with the 7.09 tag, so we weren't able to build a image with all the stuff needed. This Ninux.org meta package simply was supposed to install OLSR and a few more stuff, and put correct configuration files. The problem was the olsrd init.d and configuration scripts changed so many times in the trunk, that every 2 or 3 weeks we had to update our meta-package. This did not work because we did not have enough developers with free time in the community. Having a stable branch for packages creates a solid environment, to let people work on OpenWRT, without messing with changes in the trunk and with changes in the packages. Note that some packages introduce big changes sometimes, especially for what regards their config or startup files. See olsrd as an example. > The separate packages branch was added to the feeds.conf.default only > for the time when we introduce build system changes in trunk that make > the packages incompatible with 8.09. Look at it this way. If I am doing a little project for the Ninux.org Community, a package (e.g. olsrd) may still be compatible with 8.09 but it may be not anymore compatible with the meta-package I'm developing. Now, for projects with 1 or 2 developers working for free, they may not be interested in keeping the little meta-package compatible with trunk, but it would be very useful to use the OpenWRT 8.09 tag as the starting point for the rest of the work. > Because svn (at least the version we're using right now) has no usable > way of doing merge tracking, keeping a separate branch of the > package repository would mean a lot of extra (and unnecessary) work. You can always keep it outdated ... :) my 2 cents Saverio _______________________________________________ openwrt-devel mailing list openwrt-devel@lists.openwrt.org http://lists.openwrt.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-devel
