Re: patching the stable branch (was: Re: Octave 3.1.52 available for ftp)

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* John W. Eaton <address@hidden> [2009-02-12 15:30]:

> On 12-Feb-2009, Søren Hauberg wrote:
> 
> | tor, 12 02 2009 kl. 11:53 -0500, skrev John W. Eaton:
> | > Comments?
> | 
> | I agree! "stable" should be stable, which means as little as possible
> | should change.
> 
> I would also like to add that there is nothing that says we even have
> to provide a series of stable bug fixing releases.  But if we decide
> to do that, then I would like to resist the urge to turn the stable
> release series into a separate line of development with many changes
> because I don't think that helps stability, and more importantly, it
> is a time sink that takes effort away from the main development
> branch.

Putting my Debian package maintainer hat on , I must say that we (the DOG,
Debian Octave Group) have been doing this kind of "stable bug fixing" work
for the Debian packages since ages. Indeed, it is a lot of work, but we need
to close the bug reports that are filed against our packages by our users.

I tend to agree with Thomas that is is important to provide a stable branch
that is alive and as bug-free as we can.  However, I also agree with John
that this is a time sink for the upstream developers.  On the other hand, if
people with enough free time are willing to do it, like Jaroslav recently,
why not do it?  Of course, porting fixes from the development branch must be
done with extreme care.  This is what we usually do in the DOG.

-- 
Rafael