Re: [HACKERS] Open 6.3.1 issues

The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

>     Put them up as "official patches" against v6.3.1, but no
> v6.3.2...not so close behind v6.3.1 :(

Whatever you choose to do, make sure it's well reasoned out and that
you will then continue to follow that scheme!

You have to decide what will be "releases" and what will be "interim".
For instance, you could say that 6.3 is a release, and 6.4 will be
one, while 6.3.N (for a possibly large number of sequentially
allocated values for N) will be interim releases.  On the other hand,
you could call 6.3.1 a release, and then go for 6.3.1.N, after the
same scheme.  (This seems to be what Marc wants.)  Next it is
necessary to decide whether the interim releases will be snapshots of
the development tree or a separate branch where important problems are
fixed by patches that are derived from the main branch.  The former is
easier on the developers, the latter option means that two versions of
the code tree must be administered (if they're both in the same actual
CVS tree, they will be different branches).

In any case, make sure that upgrading is a step by step operation,
yielding a numerically increasing sequence of version numbers (or
version number plus patchlevel, if you like), so that it will always
be possible to say "I run version so-and-so", and _not_ "well, I run
version so-and-so, and I've applied the patches for this and that, and
that other patch that I also needed".

While I'm writing: are these lists gatewayed to USENET somehow?  It
seems to me that my posting to PostgreSQL lists causes an increase in
the amount of garbage I receive from the sort of people whom I'd like
to have some time alone with -- with a baseball bat, while they were
tied up.  Yup, people who send unsolicited commercial email.  If there
is such a gateway, I'd like to know, so I can stop sending anything to
these lists.  (I've stopped using USENET altogether for this reason.)

-tih
--
Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity.  --Niles Crane, "Frasier"