[development] Suggestion for people releasing new modules and themes into CVS

[Derek Wright]

On Sep 14, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:

> In all, it boils down to the need for good communication by the module
> author on what the status of the project is, beyond simply the  
> existence
> of a tag.

for the record, the new system for releases[1] will provide more  
structured ways for contrib authors to communicate this information.   
however, the bottom line is still that the authors themselves have to  
be responsible enough to provide the info.  the degenerate case of  
the new release system (if a contrib maintainer does *no* additional  
work to take advantage of it) will basically be what we have now  
(though the tarballs will be named a little differently).

the bottom line is that the TRUNK version of a module (every branch  
has a HEAD, can we please start being specific about which "HEAD"  
we're talking about?) is always going to be a pain in the ass to use  
since the version info and potential compatibility is such a moving  
target.

however, a big part of the problem is that because contrib authors  
don't have any freedom in creating branches for their modules, if  
they want stable and development branches for a certain version of  
core (e.g. 4.7) their only option currently is to make the  
"DRUPAL-4-7" branch the 4.7-stable branch, and TRUNK is the 4.7-dev  
branch.  so, every contrib author can have a different policy about  
how they use TRUNK.  some might be early adopters and port to the  
latest core API as it's changing.  others might use TRUNK as the dev  
branch for the latest stable core.  some might leave it that way,  
even after core has moved on (e.g. some TRUNK code sitting around now  
is probably the 4.6-dev version of some modules)...

*this* part of the problem is completely addressed by the new system  
(again, if the author is willing to spend *any* additional effort to  
take advantage of it).  because there will be built-in support for  
stable + dev branches against *all* versions of the core API, contrib  
authors will never have to use the TRUNK for this.  we can break  
people of the habit of using the TRUNK versions of modules (except  
explicitly as testers/developers/maintainers).  contrib authors could  
make real releases off the TRUNK (so long as the tag name matches the  
conventions the new system will rely on and enforce, CVS doesn't care  
if that tag lives on a branch or the TRUNK).  however, even though  
these releases technically came off the TRUNK, they'd have explicit  
version info, including the version of core they're targeted for, so  
everyone would know exactly what they were and if they wanted to use  
them...

-derek

[1] http://drupal.org/node/77562 -- still in need of donations ;)