Hi, this proposal is very similar to what Ubuntu does with LTS releases : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS . It's part of the work done by the community, not by the company (Canonical).
The "test our latest features" use case is all nice and good, but it's not the actual use case of most XWiki users. Their use case is "we need people to work together using a stable, tested, reliable piece of software". That's the use case that is strengthened by releases that are supported for a longer term. This is especially true given that XWiki is still quite tough to upgrade as soon as you've made some customizations to it. Thus I reiterate my strong support for Sergiu's proposal to extend the support lifetime of end-of-cycle releases. Thanks, Guillaume On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]>wrote: > I also think we should encourage the community to always use and test out > the latest version. > > Thanks, > Eduard > > On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Caleb James DeLisle < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > On 05/22/2012 04:39 AM, Vincent Massol wrote: > > > > > > On May 21, 2012, at 9:22 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote: > > > > > >> Hi devs, > > >> > > >> Given that each development cycle usually starts with bigger changes > > and ends with a couple of stabilization releases, IMHO it makes sense to > > keep the last branch of a cycle maintained for a while longer. > > >> > > >> Our current strategy is to only support two branches at a time, the > one > > being developed, and the one before it. This means that as soon as [N].0 > is > > released, [N-1].5.x is dropped. However, the [N-1].5.x branch is much > more > > stable and polished than the fresh new start of the cycle, so more people > > would be interested in using that stable version, especially in > enterprise > > situations. Thus, I propose to amend our support rule to keep the > > end-of-cycle branch active for, let's say, 6 months. Still, this means > only > > that we backport major or critical issues, which would improve the > > stability of that branch, without any new features. > > > > > > I don't like it because the point of the 2 branches only was twofold: > > > > > > 1) Force users to move to the newer version and thus help us test it. > > Users get XWiki for free and it's good that they contribute something > back. > > Testing is contributing back. Your proposal basically means that you're > > telling users: "Don't use the new N.0 release because it's not ultra > stable > > yet, instead, stay on N-1.5.x and wait 6 months. With this strategy we'll > > have less people testing N.x and 6 months down the road N+1.x will be > less > > tested. > > > > > > 2) It's more work. We already have a hard time maintaining N.x. For > > example right now we have an important bug that was fixed in 4.0.1 and > > we're not even releasing 4.0.1 when we should. Also we're fixing bugs on > > 4.1.x that we're not backporting to 4.0. > > > > > > Also note that this means less work done on the N.x and N+1.x and our > > dev team is already very small (about 5-6 active committers)… > > > > > > I think I'd prefer a slightly different strategy: > > > * As a team we keep the same rule as now, i.e. only 2 branches (dev > > branch + stable) > > > * If a given committer wants to maintain another branch himself a bit > > more, he can do it but he should state it on a case by case basis so that > > others don't delete it and then it's up to him to backport stuff he wants > > to the branch and close it when it's no longer needed. > > > > I agree, I'm not opposed to old versions being supported but I don't > think > > it's the community's job. > > I wouldn't expect Linus Torvolds to support 2.4.x, but RedHat can. > > > > Caleb > > > > > > > > WDYT? > > > > > > Thanks > > > -Vincent > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > devs mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > devs mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
