[crossfire] Version bump request?

[Mark Wedel]

On 03/30/14 07:06 AM, Kevin Zheng wrote:
> On 03/28/2014 10:56, DraugTheWhopper wrote:
>> Right, so assuming that this email gets to the intended place
>> [crossfire], here's a request: is there any chance of getting a new
>> official upstream release? So the story is as follows: I do no coding or
>> developing, but know enough about Linux to run Debian Testing. However,
>> the current upstream version of CF is 1.70.0, which as of a week ago, is
>> about two years old. If i understand correctly, all trunk improvements
>> since then are not in any official upstream release, therefore never get
>> packaged for Debian, and so are not seen by the casual people who merely
>> "apt-get dist-upgrade" occasionally. Is there a chance a version 1.70.x
>> could be released periodically, or is there a 1.99 that could be
>> packaged separately, or should someone just start packaging nightly
>> builds as "crossfire-client-unstable"? Please pardon my ignorance and
>> correct me as necessary.
>
> Yes, I think it's about time that we cut a new release. Even something
> as minor as "1.70.1" would be good, because it would mean that the
> *many* fixes and improvements are accessible to package users.

  I also agree that a release would be in order.  I'd just call it 1.71 - there 
isn't really any reason to do a micro release - one could even argue that 
calling it 1.80 is reasonable, on the basis that as much has changed from now to 
the past 1.70 release as between 1.60 and 1.70.

  Note that the release numbers should not be seen as decimal places - a 1.100.0 
release should be considered valid - in other words, a 2.00 release does not 
have to follow a 1.90 release.

>
> It might not even be a bad idea to cut a minor release every year or so
> on a schedule, because there's really not a lot of release engineering
> that has to be done.

  There used to be a schedule, but any such process requires that the person 
making the release have time to do it.  Also, on some of those, I got people 
asking on why I'm doing a release then vs in a month, and that time based 
releases didn't make much sense, which sort of made me disinclined to do such 
time based/scheduled releases.

   In theory, anyone can be given release admin privs, and there isn't anything 
that prevents anyone from making a release (there are not any secret/private 
tools that I use).  I'm pretty sure I wrote a wiki doc on the release process 
that describes all the steps.

  Now clearly, it does make some sense that releases be coordinated - if you 
have 5 people each making releases based on what they seem reasonable, the 
release process could become a real mess.

>
> Right now the code seems stable and no massive changes are being
> planned. Is cutting a release feasible in the next week?

  Are you volunteering to make the release, or are you asking the person that 
typically makes releases (me) if I can make a release?

  My free time always seems to be disappearing in various ways, so hard for me 
to commit to being able to get a release done in the next week.