Hello Jim, My own thoughts:
On Sun, 15 May 2022 at 21:56, Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: > I'm interested in a parallel test distribution that gets updated on a > regular schedule, by an automated (or mostly-automated) process. Let's > say there's a new test distribution once a month. Each test > distribution contains everything in the distribution that's current > when it was built: packages, installer, translations, documentation, > etc. > > For example, imagine monthly test distributions called "FreeDOS Test > Build 2022-07," "FreeDOS Test Build 2022-08," FreeDOS Test Build > 2022-09," ... you get the idea. These don't have a "1.3" or other > version number on them, only a test build label. > > *How we would use this: > > We can leave FreeDOS 1.3 distribution as the *stable* release, and > continue to make changes in the test distribution. > > Developers use the monthly test distribution if they want to test > interoperability with other recent packages. Folks who want to test > can always find the latest version to experiment with. Translators > have the latest version. Documenters have the latest version. And so > on. > > The test release label will make it easier to track bugs. "This bug in > (program) was reported in FreeDOS 1.3, but that problem in (program) > was fixed since then. Download the latest FreeDOS Test Build and see > if that fixes it." > > At some point in the future (let's use July 2023 as an example) we > might decide "there haven't been significant changes in the FreeDOS > test releases in the last year .. we've only seen package updates, no > big distribution changes .. let's make a 'FreeDOS 1.3 Update1' release > with the new changes." And then we can promote "FreeDOS Test Build > 2023-07" as "FreeDOS 1.3U1 RC1" and go through the testing. Bug fixes > go back into the monthly test release, so "FreeDOS Test Build 2023-08" > becomes "FreeDOS 1.3U1 RC2," and so on. When testing looks okay, we > can release "FreeDOS 1.3U1" with very little effort. > Well, for this to work, all the updates on the test releases should be corrective (patches). No new features should be added for this to happen, otherwise, the test releases will fix some bugs and introduce new ones. For this reason, it would be useful that the name contains the point version it is based upon: "FreeDOS Test Build 2023-07 over 1.3" or whatever. However, it is hard that not all tools would have both fix releases and new feature releases. If it were really easy an automated to create new distribution, ideally there could be two lines: one that patches 1.3 and a second one that goes toward 1.4. Aitor
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