Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Arwed von Merkatz <v.merkatz AT gmx.net>]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 05:34:02PM -0500, Jeremy Blosser (emrys) wrote:
> On May 07, Arwed von Merkatz [v.merkatz AT gmx.net] wrote:
> > What I'd like to see:
> > - spell asks which version to use, always defaulting to the stable
> >   version
> 
> One point of clarification that came up on IRC today: what is our criteria
> for judging something the "stable" version?  For example, an app has their
> last official release as the 0.99 branch.  Then development work on a new
> 1.0 branch was done.  Now 1.0 is in RC mode, and they recommend people do
> switch now.  Should we consider 1.0RC "stable" at this point and update our
> spell to use this as default, or is this still "devel" to us until it's
> past RC to 1.0 final?  Does the time 1.0RC has been out make a difference?
> What about if all upstream support for the app is asking people to upgrade
> whenever they report issues?
> 
> This may seem like a stupid question but if we're going to "default to
> stable" we need to draw a clear line where that is, since each app's
> release process is slightly different.

Stable is the version the upstream developers tell people is stable.
E.g. for mplayer stable is the 1.0pre7try2.
It's not that easy to make that a really clear line though, it's the
same as with single version spells. Single version spells are supposed
to use a stable version, though this can and does in various cases mean
a devel version simply because that's what fits in our version
landscape.
Overall it's a matter of judgement by the guru, but the default is the
upstream developers statement of what's stable.

-- 
Arwed v. Merkatz                              Source Mage GNU/Linux developer
                                                    http://www.sourcemage.org