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

[Davide Pagnin <nightmare@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2002-08-27 at 20:22, Reinier Post wrote:
> 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.

This is true only in part.
As you may know, there are many ongoing projects that have a stable
branch and a development branch, thus I'm not talking of something
mystic or unknown. 
The client maintainers (I imagine you talk mostly for the win32
platform) have to help this bugfix process only by compiling the given
patched tree, and I barely consider translation issues worth of being
included in a bugfix release.
Anyway, the work of applying the patches on the stable branch can be
done only by maintainers, but, if the developers that submit a patch is
aware he has also to backport his patch to the stable branch, the work
that maintainers has to do, is less.
Perhaps we also need more maintainers and more developers, but this is
already known...

> 
> 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.

Yes, the gamma phase can be a good alternative, if the release timeline
for Freeciv continues to be 1 year between two stable releases.
Even if this became 6 month, 2 week of gamma phase are worth the work
involved in doing an eventual fixed release.

IMHO, this can't be considered an alternative to having a stable branch,
it is an orthogonal proposal. (and a *GOOD* one!)

> 
> 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.

Now you can found on ftp.freeciv.org a new version, with one more bug
fixed (chat no more frozen during nation-selection) and a version_label
that clearly indicate a non basic 1.13.0 release.

ftp://ftp.freeciv.org/freeciv/incoming/freeciv-1.13.0-pl3.tar.bz2

I hope than many of you give this a try...

> 
> >     Ciao, Davide
> 
> -- 
> Reinier
> 
>