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

[Gregory Berkolaiko <Gregory.Berkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 28 Aug 2002, Davide Pagnin wrote:

> > > 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.

Weeks have tendency to become months.  The pre-release period of 1.13.0 
was already long enough but was the result truly stable?  I don't think 
so.  There were objective reasons for it, like major additions to the 
codebase, yes.  But two gamma-weeks won't solve such things.  A stable 
branch is the only sensible solution IMO.

G.