Hello. I agree with a point release and simplifying the release process.
73 - Jason On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 9:47 AM Tom Russo <[email protected]> wrote: > Gang: > > It's been over a year since our last Xastir release, and there has been > very > little development since then -- mostly minor tweaks to the build system > necessary to keep Xastir building as compilers, libraries, and > autoconf/automake keep dropping support for old things we used to do. > > We just got a pull request to fix a dumb autoconf issue that broke Xastir > builds on gentoo when using the very latest autoconf/automake. It was > utterly trivial to fix. > > Most of these things are hacks that are already being addressed by package > maintainers using local patches, but we've addressed them in the base > package > so it would simplify their processes if we just pushed out a new point > release. > The gcc10 fixes we did a while back were of this ilk, and our pushing out > the 2.1.6 release helped get those changes to everyone instead of every OS > having to patch them up themselves. > > It is also the case that some distros and non-linux operating systems don't > update Xastir except when we do official releases, so pushing out a new > release > would help those OSen stay up to date. > > We've had a "2.2.0" project on the github page for a really long time and > there has been no motion on the 6 "to do" or "in progress" items needed to > call > that release done. So I do not propose we call our next release 2.2.0, but > just 2.1.8, capturing the state as it is right now. > > Does anyone have any objections to making such a release in short order? > > Also: our current "release process" is a little antiquated and is designed > to minimize the "surprise" when transitioning from our old SourceForge/CVS > release process to our new github. The big one is that we do this weird > thing so that the tarballs created for our releases are "pre-bootstrapped" > so they're ready to go upon being downloaded instead of requiring the user > to run bootstrap. > > It's years now since we moved to git, and maintaining clunky release > processes > to accomodate those who only know CVS seems long past its sell-by date. > > There are downsides to this clunky release approach, almost all on my end > --- > it makes it much harder to create a release, because we have to create a > branch, do funky things on that branch to make bootstrap artifacts no > longer > ignored, commit those things, and then tag the end of the branch as the > release (and the tag can then be used at github to create the tarballs for > the > release automatically). > > Doing this means our "release branch" is a dead end and is never merged > back > onto master, and our release tag is not reachable in git history from > master, > meaning "git describe" output is almost useless. > > I propose we discontinue this handholding approach that serves only to let > downloaders skip exactly one step of the build process (the bootstrap, > which > creates configure and all the Makefile.in files), and go to one where the > tarballs are literally just a snapshot out of the git repo, and built > exactly > the same way (bootstrap, configure, make). > > Changing this means simplifying the build instructions to remove "if you're > downloading a tarball, do this, if you're cloning git, do that" > conditionals > and replace them with "do that". But in the long run it will make the > process simpler and might make deciding to make point releases less > weighty. > > It also means changing the document that describes how to do the release in > excruciating detail (README.developers.md). I propose removing the > instructions for how to do "development snapshots", too, since this hasn't > been done in many years and is clearly no longer needed. > > If we agree that doing a point release makes sense, I also call on all to > take a quick look and see if there are any things that need immediate > update > (for example, get-NWSdata is frequently behind the times and references > outdated files --- anyone checked recently whether it needs an update?). > It > would be good to get those done before pushing out a point release. > > -- > Tom Russo KM5VY > Tijeras, NM > > echo "prpv_a'rfg_cnf_har_cvcr" | sed -e 's/_/ /g' | tr [a-m][n-z] > [n-z][a-m] > > _______________________________________________ > Xastir-dev mailing list > [email protected] > http://xastir.org/mailman/listinfo/xastir-dev > -- "The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is often difficult to verify their authenticity." - *Abraham Lincoln* _______________________________________________ Xastir-dev mailing list [email protected] http://xastir.org/mailman/listinfo/xastir-dev
