On Mar 16, 2007, at 6:24, James Carlson wrote:
> Ed Gould writes:
>> Yes. I'm fine with this Volatile interface either disappearing
>> completely or becoming Private with no incompatible changes ever.
>> Note
>> especially the word "ever."
>
> I think that pretty much puts the last nail in the coffin for Volatile
> as a generally usable classification. The very definition of Volatile
> is that it allows for incompatible change at any time -- including in
> Micro releases and patches.
>
> That's much more often than "no incompatible change ever."
>
> Is it your intention that we should just disallow all "experimental"
> projects? That's effectively what this project is attempting to do,
> and the implication of disallowing the use of Volatile for the fluid
> bits. I'm somewhat in accord with that prohibition, but I think we
> have a clash with senior management here.
No, I wasn't intending to ban experimental interfaces. And maybe
that's the right way to look at this interface, too. Rather, I had
seen this interface more as a case of, we don't have time (==
resources) to do this right, so we're going to release it with
something ugly (use $EDITOR on a text file) to get by. I guess that's
really what I was uncomfortable with. In the end, there may not be a
difference to the customer.
>> If the interface is going to vanish in a future release, I would want
>> the case supporting that release to include the transition plan.
>
> A transition plan for Volatile? When do we require that?
You're right. I withdraw my objection if this is marked Volatile.
> Also note that basically none of this matters a whit. You could call
> it Committed if you like. Because our taxonomy is based on releases,
> and this project isn't targeting an Update, the interface is not
> frozen until Nevada actually ships as a release. We apparently have
> no plans to do that at all at any point in the future. So, by the
> time NWAM phase 1, 2, and 3 come around, and Nevada still hasn't
> shipped, we'll still be able to make incompatible changes, even in
> Committed interfaces.
I think this situation got a lot muddier when SXDE got released.
--Ed
