[DRAFT] Proposed release schedule for 1.9.x

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting Chris Shoemaker <c.shoemaker at cox.net>:

> Hmm... I have a different concern.  I think we could basically start
> rolling tarballs as soon as distcheck works, but I don't know if the
> 2.0.0 date is reasonable or not.  I just don't have a feeling for what
> the state of g2 is right now.  Probably we won't know until we start
> getting wider testing.

I agree that the 2.0.0 release date needs to be flexible based on
how well the 1.9.x releases are received.

> So, I think we should release something soon.  I don't think we need
> to advertise a rigid release schedule.  I think we should aim for at
> least every three weeks, but we should feel no hesitation to release
> *before* three weeks if we feel we need to.

Well, Jan 29 is "soon", is it not?  I agree we should release something
soon, but we should also keep track of all the known issues..

> As for the first release, I still see this as labor driven though.
> I've been trying to get distcheck to work for a long time, and it's
> still not there yet.  The problems are obscure and tedious and very
> time-consuming to test because a distcheck takes ~20 minutes to fail
> (mostly spent converting translation files).  I end up doing most of
> my development *during* distcheck runs.  And by the types of problems
> I'm fixing, I can tell that no one else is running these.

I gave up that fight a couple years ago.  Getting people to make sure
"make check" worked was an uphill battle.  Worse, there are a number
of tests that use random input and, as a result, randomly fail.  Some
people wanted to fix this by making the test non-random..  But I think
that only masks the actual bug that certain inputs triggered.

> I'd be a bit more optimistic about the release schedule if distcheck
> consistently passed.  If anyone want to work on this, I an report that
> the most recent failure is:

Agreed.

> libtool: link: cannot find the library 
> `../../../../../lib/libqof/qof/libqof.la'make[8]: *** 
> [libqof-backend-qsf.la] Error 1
> make[8]: Leaving directory 
> `/home/chris/svn/trunk/gnucash-1.9.0/_build/lib/libqof/backend/file'

Hmm, I would've thought this would break the build completely, not
just break a "make check"..    How odd.

> No objection.  How well-maintainted is the bugzilla?  Are there some
> bugzilla-masters out there?

Define "well maintained".  It's run by the gnome project, so it's fairly
stable.  All the committers should have full access to the GnuCash bugs.
If you do not then you should let us know what your bugzilla ID is so
you can get access.

> -chris

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available