Developer Only Discussion List

[Hamish Greig <hgreig AT bigpond.net.au>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I began to realise i had missed some people so am putting this were everyone 
can see it.
Sorry to both the people who have already read this or replied and to the 
people i left off the original cc list

- ----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

In NO way do i wish to upset anyone or accuse anyone of poor work(manship) or
lack of commitment. I believe we ALL do a wonderful job, especially those who
have taken roles as Team Leaders, however I believe we are in need of some
aggressive changes to our current grimoire structure. Lacking developers we
need to simplify thing before the stability and progress of SourceMage
suffer.
ATM we have an "out of date" STABLE grimoire, a buggy TEST grimoire and,
IMPOSSIBLY, a both volatile and out-of-date DEVEL grimoire. Our bugfixes and
our most recent changes/updates are going into a grimoire (DEVEL) that is not
yet suitable for everyday use, the more we update the more we potentially
break, leaving the bugs in TEST untouched.
We need to  simplify the release cycle by removing public access to the DEVEL
grimoire. If we stopped making devel tarballs for download and merged DEVEL
into TEST,  then we remove an unnecessary extra step in this cycle.  AT the
time of this DEVEL->TEST merge,  users stop having access to DEVEL grimoire
tarballs (which we stop making) and they become TEST grimoire users. They
report bugs as per normal and we fix all reported bugs in the TEST grimoire.
At the end of our "new release cycle" once the bugs have been fixed we merge
TEST into STABLE. Leaving STABLE as a compatible, up-to-date set of spells
and allowing TEST to be updated from our devel repository.
While we are fixing bugs in TEST, we will still submit new spells and spell
updates to CVS,perforce or subversion (whichever we decide to use). These new
spells and updates are tested by us, the developers, for compatibility with
existing spells. If enough people agree then we CAN push minor updates
through to TEST during the bugfix phase. But in general major updates will
wait until the next cycle. (Not forgetting that sometimes a bugfix is a
simple version update also :-) )
We will be relying on the users to report these bugs that have escaped us and
made it into TEST, and they in turn rely on us to promptly fix bugs once
reported. Users may run DEVEL , via CVS, perforce or subversion if they so
wish, however they should know that our priorities are the TEST release that
is soon to be released into STABLE.
This would not involve any more work than we already put in (in my opinion),
just the same amount of effort but in a different direction for maximum
effect. And for many there will be little or no difference at all. It also
allows us to test major changes(in devel) like the new init system without
hosing users systems and having to spend hours on ML or  IRC nursing people's
systems back to life.
I honestly believe this will benefit everyone in the long run, release cycles
could be as short as 3-4weeks from the authors release to it's entry into
STABLE which is 3-4 time quicker than the present.
We do need more developers in the long (and short) term, but even with these
new developers I believe that things should be simplified.
Please discuss this at length. I hope this proposal agrees with you and we
 can develop any or many flaws through honest meaningful communication.
Thank you and goodnight
Hamish Greig
Johnny-come-lately & Nomadic Guru
- -- 
Do You SMuGL!?
# Linux so advanced it may as well be magic!
# http://www.sourcemage.org/
# A onestop guide to Defenestration!
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE/Fo5T8fSufZR6424RAghPAJ0e1zSQaXmoCMaKBUo+0K9wKVed/gCgh7Kg
W7SdcH+xcOA09wopZzeImzc=
=KwVh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----