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

[Søren Hauberg]

fre, 13 02 2009 kl. 10:31 +0100, skrev Rafael Laboissiere:
> 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.

I'm saying this, without knowing anything about anything, so feel free
to consider this pure bullshit... 

If the DOG is doing this kind of work, why can't you guys just be the
release managers for the stable series? It just sounds like there is a
large overlap between maintaining the stable branch and maintaining
Octave in a distribution.

Soren