OK so here you go (funny, I guess I now consider myself an old-timer). I am +1 for including experimental modules in the stable releases mainly because of my experience with auth_ldap and mod_ldap which I consider to be very successful. Back in 2001 the dev list, for some odd reason (and you can read the archives for more details), voted to remove auth_ldap and mod_ldap out of the core project and into it's own sub-project. During the next 10 months, all development/maintenance of the module ceased. Moving these modules into a sub-project with no visibility and no release mechanism, essentially killed them. In Aug. of 2002 after some discussion on the list, I proposed to move auth_ldap and mod_ldap back into the core project but as experimental modules. Once they were moved back, myself, Graham and others started working on them with the goal in mind of getting them stabilized and out of experimental. With the release of 2.2, that goal will be accomplished.
IMO, moving auth_ldap and mod_ldap back into the experimental directory and releasing them in the tarball, provided them with the opportunity to be developed, tested, stabilized and to become standard modules. Allowing them to be released along side of the standard modules gave them the visibility and testing they needed to identify stabilization issues and other bugs that needed to be addressed before they could be promoted out of experimental. It is true that auth_ldap and mod_ldap are still classified as experimental in the 2.0 branch but this is not because of stability issues or anything else other than circumstances. The authentication refactoring essentially caused a fork in the auth_ldap code. All new development continued in trunk even though bug fixes where still being backported to 2.0. They are still experimental in 2.0 only because there is no point in moving them with the current release expectation of 2.2 where they will be classified as standard modules. IMO, we need to continue to do this with other modules like mod_dbd, mod_filter, etc. It does the project more good to keep the user engaged in new stuff allowing it to move forward and stabilize newer functionality. Brad >>> On Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 4:03:04 pm, in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Colm MacCarthaigh wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 02:01:07PM -0700, Paul Querna wrote: >> >>>So, lets change the VERSIONING file/policy. Experimental Modules will >>>be included in the stable branch. Majority Agree? >> >> +1 > > I thank everyone who's voicing an opinion - it's very important that we > come to concensus. > > I'm incredibly concerned however that most votes on this issue are from > our 'newcomers' - those without the experience of the pains and problems > encountered in previous Apache release cycles. I appreciate all of the > enthusiasm, drive and forward momentum! But I'm worried that a policy > we arrived at, following the contentious and problematic 2.0 GA, would > be tossed aside so quickly without any feedback from our 'older' devs. > > So this message is not at our newcomers, welcome to you all. Rather, > I'm addressing this post to our 'old timers' who did struggle through > the 1.3.x and 2.0.x GA process, to add your thoughts and observations. > > Bill
