On 1/29/2019 7:40 AM, Wietse Venema wrote:
I'm reconsidering the once-per-year schedule for stable releases.
Basically, a Postfix stable release freezes development at a point
in time, forever. Primarily, this is good for stability.
Are the reasons you imposed a once-per-year release previously lessened
in some way today? The release schedule is far less important than the
quality & usability of the product. So the question is what works for
you - and what will encourage you to continue making your efforts
available to others?
As a user - I'd prefer releases "when they're ready" regardless of
timeline or age. Postfix has the unfortunately unusual record of
extreme stability - so as far as I'm concerned if you and those you work
with consider a particular revision "stable-worthy" I'd rather you
release it instead of waiting an arbitrary time period. Which/how many
versions you choose to provide support for is far less important to *me*
than seeing continued growth.
But knowing that Postfix enjoys a preferred role for many distributions
as the SMTP solution of choice I'm assuming you're also concerned about
interactions with distro maintainers. So I suggest two possibilities:
1. Similar to Ubuntu - have more frequent "short-term support" releases
with designated "long-term support" releases at longer intervals.
2. Re-consider whether arbitrary date-based releases are meaningful at
all. Instead, release on the "when they're ready" model and when a
combination of reporting frequency and your own sensibilities tell you
conditions are right designate a particular release as "long-term
stable" - which will probably be close to an annual basis and will
hopefully line-up with most distro freeze schedules as well.
--
Daniel
