Re: [Qemu-devel] release retrospective, next release timing, numbering

[Cornelia Huck]

On Wed, 2 May 2018 02:03:14 -0700
Liviu Ionescu <address@hidden> wrote:

> On 2 May 2018 at 11:13:49, Thomas Huth (address@hidden) wrote:
> 
> > https://qemu.weilnetz.de/doc/qemu-doc.html#Deprecated-features  
> 
> Thank you, Thomas.
> 
> > It took quite a while to get a consensus on that policy, so I don't
> > think that we want to sacrifice that for semver.  
> 
> ok, this might be a point.
> 
> thinking twice, I'm not sure it is a real sacrifice; I think that the
> problem here is the strict definition:
> 
> "The feature will remain functional for 2 releases prior to actual removal."
> 
> if it were:
> 
> "The feature will remain functional for _at least_ 2 releases prior to
> actual removal. "
> 
> or even better:
> 
> "The feature will remain functional for _at least_ 2 _major_ releases
> prior to actual removal. "
> 
> 
> it would allow to postpone incompatible removals to relatively seldom
> major releases, add new features during more often minor releases, and
> fix bugs during regular patch releases.

Ugh, no. That would mean we have to drag around ill-conceived
interfaces for way too long.

> 
> major releases can be scheduled every 1-2 years, for example, minor
> releases every 3-6 months, and patch releases when needed.
> 
> 
> from a use perspective, I don't think that updating the deprecation
> policy would be objected, so that would not be perceived as a
> sacrifice; on the contrary, such a mechanism would allow both a
> faster/flexible release cycle, and give the users a more educated
> guess when it is time to upgrade; both beneficial.

How on earth is that supposed to speed things up?

And really, time to upgrade is either "bugs have been fixed", "a
feature I want has been introduced", or "my distro pushed a new
package". Not a magic number.

> 
> for the developers/maintainers... I agree that it would require some
> more discipline and responsibility.

I just don't see any benefits from that.

> 
> not to mention that even before semver, in most versioning schemes it
> was somehow expected that while the first version number remains the
> same, compatibility is more or less preserved.

I don't like semver. For development as it is done in many projects
today, you're just doing incremental updates all the time, probably
with a stable branch on the side. Meaningful version numbers just get
us to stupid discussions about what is a bugfix, what a minor feature,
and what a major feature.

IOW, I think *any* versioning scheme that does not assign
interface/feature expectations to version numbers (beyond "a suffix
means a stable update" or something like that) is what would work for
us.