[Freeciv-Dev] Forking of a stable branch of freeciv / bugfix release for 1.13.0 ?

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 03:33:58PM +0200, Davide Pagnin wrote:
>       Hi all!
> 
> I have already proposed this and small (or none) interest have been
> demonstrated to adopting such a policy.
>
> The proposal is to maintain a stable branch of freeciv CVS tree:
> (at the moment in the cvs you'll found the stable code, if you
> give the R1.13.0 tag to cvs update command)

I am not a maintainer or even a developer but I can't see that this
is going to work.  It will take more effort and maintainers are
already taxed for time.  You also need all the client authors and
translators to do their part for a bugfix release.

Meanwhile I agree with you that a bugfix release for 1.13.0 would be a
good idea, but it's up to the maintainers.

> Backporting fixes to stable code is obviously difficult, if you have to
> do it in after 2 month of development, and moreover not every bug can be
> fixed in an easy way, and moreover new bugs can be introduced by patches
> for old ones.

What about this alternative: introduce a "gamma" phase.  Agree to
enter nothing but bugfixes during the first two weeks after a release.
If major bugs show up, make a bugfix release.

Obviously this wouldn't be necessary if Freeciv releases were well
tested but the game doesn't seem to be popular enough :(

> Anyway, just to demonstrate what a 'maintenance' release, at this point,
> would be for the 1.13.0 release, I've backported some the bugfix that
> you can found in the CVS and added some 'hotfix' for known issues.
> 
> You'll found the file as:
> ftp://ftp.freeciv.org/freeciv/incoming/freeciv-1.13.0-pl1.tar.bz2
> 
> I have uploaded the fully patched version, because the goal is to not
> bother people with patching the tree code.
> 
> Full information of relevant changes.txt entries backported and to
> hotfixes applied can be found inside the tar file.

I'd like to publish this on the site with a news item.
The turn done bug is too embarrassing.

>       Ciao, Davide

-- 
Reinier