Xavier Did you know that -dev releases are by definition a nightly build? This means that they get refreshed daily with whatever content is in the branch/tag that they are pointed to. That is what they are, so no room for changing it. As for enforcing stable releases, this is open source software, which apart from what Victor said (ready when ready), it is maintained mostly in the spare time of maintainers, so they handle the releases whichever way they see fit/have time for. With open source, you should not "enforce" anything beyond the very basics, otherwise, you erect barriers, add more work, and discourage participation. Yes, best practices says that we should do stable releases whenever possible, with branches, but all that is more work for the maintainers, and for some who maintain a lot of modules, it is just not possible to do it across the board. A rant may not get the desired effect, but a discussion is good to have to see what is the range of opinions on the topic. In the past, I have seen people request stable releases nicely in the issue queue and I have responded to a few of these positively, time permitting of course. On Feb 18, 2008 8:08 AM, Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@free.fr> wrote:
So ? Ready when ready, I agree with that. But two successive versions should be called 5.x-1.(n) and 5.x-1.(n+1), with (n) and (n+1) being actual numbers, not 5.x-1.x-dev and 5.x-1.x-dev.
Look at the video module for example: not a single 5.x stable release, it went through numerous versions, all called 5.x-1.x-dev. If you don't use the update module, you're screwed.
What does it cost to just change the *name* of the versions ?
Xav
PS: no offense to the video module devs, I could have picked others
On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 09:31 -0200, Victor Kane wrote:
Open source golden rule: ready when ready
On Feb 18, 2008 9:12 AM, Ashraf Amayreh <mistknight@gmail.com> wrote: I really fail to see what a proposed change of process has anything to do with open source and closed source. As if it were the case that if we only allowed proper releases we're removing the "provided as is" flag or somehow going against open source concepts.
On Feb 18, 2008 12:28 PM, Victor Kane <victorkane@gmail.com> wrote: Hey guys, this is an Open Source project (or was the last time I checked).
So, releases get done when they are ready.
It's really up to each module developer to decide when a stable release should be ready, since use is always on an "as is" basis.
Obviously there may be irritating cases where there is a chronic "dev" release that "everyone uses"; but that has to be handled on a case by case basis, and usually via a good natured mail to the maintainer.
saludos,
Victor Kane http://awebfactory.com.ar
On Feb 18, 2008 8:20 AM, Ashraf Amayreh <mistknight@gmail.com> wrote: Sometime I think this should become a requirement rather than something optional, all current dev releases could be promoted to a first release and new dev releases banned.
Not sure how good an idea this is, but if dev releases are so unstable, then maybe they should remain unreleased until they are, and if they are stable, then there's no reason for them to be dev.
On Feb 18, 2008 11:43 AM, Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@free.fr> wrote: Hi,
I'm writing a little rant about modules. I know it's tempting when you start your module to call it a "development version", because it doesn't work so well yet or it's not finished. But many modules never leave that state, and e.g. now that the official Drupal version is 6.x and that version 5.x is just a bugfix release, there are still many modules with only a 5.x-1.x-dev release.
There's also the case where you have a concurrent -dev and numbered release, but only the -dev release has the features and the bugfix to make it usable.
This isn't just a cosmetic problem. As all releases have the same name, it's very inconvenient to store different versions, e.g. to go back in case of problem. Also it doesn't work so well with the update module (even if it tries to workaround that).
So please, do proper releases. If you need to work on features, do a parallel 1.n and 2.n version, but avoid using -dev in code which should really be used.
Thanks,
Xav
-- Ashraf Amayreh http://blogs.aamayreh.org
-- Ashraf Amayreh http://blogs.aamayreh.org
-- Khalid M. Baheyeldin 2bits.com, Inc. http://2bits.com Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.