Distributing unstable Windows binaries

[Philip Nienhuis]

Hi,

Markus Bergholz and I were discussing putting up unstable Windows 
binaries (3.9.0+ & 4.1.0+) on mxeoctave.osuv.de.
Before proceeding I'd like to have the opinions of other Octave 
developers on this.

My thoughts:

- Using mxe-octave I regularly build binary Windows installers anyway 
from the gui-release and default branches (currently 3.9.0+ & 4.1.0+ 
combined into one installer). Usually soon after a merge from stable -> 
gui-release -> default.
I use those binaries at work (always a good test), rather than stable 
Octave versions.

- The unstable versions offer features (and fixes) not yet in stable 
that (some/many) users might need. Until now Linux users had a bit of an 
advantage here: even with mxe-octave the treshold for building unstable 
(Windows, or OSX) Octave versions is still significantly higher than for 
Linux users.

- I could also distribute "unstable" OF package versions (in my case the 
io package) this way.

- Some increase in bug reports / issues / support requests etc can be 
expected. Is this a bad thing?

- User expectation needs attention. I was thinking of an Octave prompt 
along the lines of:
"Octave <version> development snapshot <date> - use at own risk!\n>>"
...plus maybe some additions to the readme.


Currently my mxe-octave build tree is somewhat outdated and a bit messy 
as I have many personal mods; so I think my current unstable Windows 
binaries are less suited for distribution. But now that mxe-octave is 
more or less feature-complete (i.e., Ghostscript has been added) I have 
a good reason to upgrade :-)  and it's easier for me to supply the mxe 
changes to comply with the GPL.

Thought, opinions?

Thanks,

Philip