[sword-devel] 1.7.1 Release

[Greg Hellings]

On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 3:26 AM, Chris Little <chrislit at crosswire.org>wrote:

> On 12/27/2013 10:54 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:
>
>> We are proud to announce the release of version 1.7.1 of the Sword
>> engine which may now be acquired from the web server. It includes only
>> bug fixes over 1.7.0.
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>
> Could we define the role of the 1.7.x branch? Is this bug fixes only? Or
> are new features that maintain ABI compatibility candidates for inclusion?
>

My intention is only to include bug fixes unless there is further demand
that the new features that don't break ABI get included. But when I think
of these patch releases I have always pictured them as bug-fix only
releases that require minimal effort and can quick push out those fixes to
keep up with important fixes.


> Is there a planned period between releases or will they just go out
> whenever it looks like there are a few new commits?
>

Provided they are just bug fixes, I had no plans of a hard schedule.
Minimally I would like to shoot for a release every 6 months, provided
there are bugs squashed in that time. Since most Linux distributions with
discrete releases are on 6 month or longer release schedules that seems a
reasonable goal to shoot for. Of course, it depends on the severity of the
bug fixes. If 1-7-x is truly bug fix only, it seems that the severity of
the bug impact should be the guiding factor on more frequent releases.


> Given that there were only three simple lines of code changed in 1.7.1,
> testing obviously wasn't particularly needed for this. For more substantive
> changes, can we expect at least an RC or a suggestion to test the branch
> HEAD?


Most definitely. Troy was just guiding me through the release process this
time so I was accustomed to it and could document it for future use. I
hadn't necessarily planned to cut a release on those three commits with no
fanfare, and I will definitely give a shout-out in the future before such
releases. The possible exception to this might be the utilities? In the
interest of keeping releases of those frequent it might be worth merging
down all non-breaking changes to those, even if they involve new
functionality.

Without specific guidance to the contrary, I plan to keep the merges to
sword-1-7-x maximally conservative and truly patch/bug fix commits only.
This will minimize the amount of effort needed for testing and allow the
most frequent releases when the need arises. If others wish to make it more
complex, I'm happy to do so but I wouldn't presume to make that choice
without consensus and guidance from you, Troy, and others central to
development.

--Greg


>
>
> --Chris
>
>
>
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