Re: 2.9.15 --> 3.0

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* David Bateman <address@hidden> [2007-10-08 17:31]:

> Thomas Weber wrote:
> > Am Montag, den 08.10.2007, 12:34 +0200 schrieb Søren Hauberg:
> >   
> >> John W. Eaton skrev:
> >>     
> >>> On  7-Oct-2007, Søren Hauberg wrote:
> >>>
> >>> | So, what does that mean? Essentially we have to make some 3.0 release 
> >>> | candidate release about a week before 3.0 is actually released. 
> >>>
> >>> That's essentially what 2.9.14 was supposed to be, and (RSN) 2.9.15,
> >>> etc.  It's just that we keep finding things to fix or tweak.
> >>>       
> >> What I was suggesting was really to make a release at some point. Call 
> >> the a release candidate. And if nothing big comes up in the following 
> >> week release that. Currently it seems like we keep on fixing bugs, and 
> >> that nobody really knows when 3.0 is released. This isn't helpful to 
> >> people who want to create binary distribution. If we want binary 
> >> distributions on the day of the release, then we need to create an 
> >> unofficial release sometime before the actual release. This is what I 
> >> meant with a release candidate.
> >>
> >> Did that make sense?
> >>     
> >
> > Are there objections to start with this process *now*? Bringing a
> > package with a new name into Debian can easily take more than a week[1].
> > So, we would like to package 2.9.14 as release candidate now, just to
> > have a package with the name octave3.0.
> >
> > [1] It needs manual intervention outside the realm of packagers.

Just a clarification: any package submitted to the Debian unstable
distribution with a totally new name (even if the software was previously
packaged under another name) must be approved by the ftp-master admins and
get stuck in the NEW queue [1] for a random [2] amount of time.

[1] http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html
[2] By "random", I mean something in the range of one week to one month or
    more, depending on several factors, like the availability of people in
    the admin team (remember, they are all volunteers)

> Does a RC release have to have a name like 3.0RC1? Can't we just say
> that 2.9.15 is 3.0RC1? Is that sufficient for Debian?

I think we should release right now the octave3.0 packages to Debian
unstable, but give it a "version" number 2.9.14-1 (supposing that we package
the current 2.9.14 tarball).  These packages will be identical to their
current octave2.9 counterparts, with only the name changed.  We could also
upload the new packages to the experimental distribution.

The goal of the exercise is to get octave3.0 approved in Debian by the time
the real 3.0.0 is released to the world.

-- 
Rafael