Re: gEDA-user: test repo

[Russell Dill <Russ.Dill@xxxxxxx>]

>> with one checked-out version you know
>> works, or maintain your own bugfix branch. ÂGit head is where
>> development happens, and when we're bringing in big changes, stuff
>> breaks.
>
> This is why other projects like KiCAD provide a dedicated testing repo.
> Debian even has four stages (experimental, unstable, testing and stable).
> By the way, stuff also breaks with small changes. See the first commits
> of the new layer selector.

gEDA PCB's developer and testing community is much smaller than
Debian's. I don't know about a size comparison to KiCAD. The only way
bugs can be fixed is by someone finding that it's broken in the first
place. I fear that not only would the developer resources be there to
maintain two separate branches, but the testing resources wouldn't be
there either. Out of all the people testing on git HEAD, I think only
you managed to find the large silk bug. This model is used with quite
a bit of success in linux kernel development with the linux-next tree,
so who knows, maybe it does have a place.

I think the only way this gets solved is the suggestion that someone
made of someone tagging "semi-stable" versions. Bug fix patches could
be back-ported to those and at some point the branch could be
abandoned for a newer semi-stable version. The nice thing about this
solution is that it can easily scale based on how many people are
willing to help maintain the various semi-stable branch points and
don't depend on the core developers doing anything. Someone with a big
enough itch to scratch could put something up on github today.


_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user