From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rob Browning Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [jerome.marant@free.fr: Re: Possible help with stable Emacs releases.] Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 17:58:32 -0500 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <871xgejdk7.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> References: <1096291271.415813c757a26@imp6-q.free.fr> <20040927134714.GA20012@fencepost> <87hdphx91c.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> <87655wswkv.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1096930848 30822 80.91.229.6 (4 Oct 2004 23:00:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:00:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rms@gnu.org, Jerome Marant , emacs-devel@gnu.org, Stefan Monnier , "Kim F. Storm" , Miles Bader Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 05 01:00:40 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1CEbou-0007l8-00 for ; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 01:00:40 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CEbvV-000163-Er for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:07:29 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CEbvG-00012S-6H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:07:14 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CEbvD-000119-KI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:07:11 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CEbvD-00010t-CD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:07:11 -0400 Original-Received: from [66.93.216.237] (helo=defaultvalue.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CEboD-0006Kw-Kw; Mon, 04 Oct 2004 18:59:57 -0400 Original-Received: from trouble.defaultvalue.org (omen.defaultvalue.org [192.168.1.1]) by defaultvalue.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7D023FC9; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:59:56 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by trouble.defaultvalue.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 50C16410A1; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:58:32 -0500 (CDT) Original-To: Francesco Potorti` In-Reply-To: (Francesco Potorti`'s message of "Fri, 01 Oct 2004 08:24:26 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:27908 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:27908 Francesco Potorti` writes: > While I want to make clear once again that this is a separate issue, > which is completely independent from the previous one, yes, I agree > that clearly indicating which releases are bugfix-only and which are > not would be valuable. Actually now that I think about it, at least for those packaging Emacs, it's somewhat critical. Right now Debian pacakges Emacs as emacsXY where XY is the major number (i.e. emacs19, emacs21, etc.). This is done under the assumption that only a change in XY signals the potential for major breakage. The Debian Emacs Policy is set up based on that assumption so that we can have multiple major versions of Emacs installed without breakage. This was very important back during the transition from emacs19 to emacs20 because there were many users who had code that they couldn't afford to port immediately. It can also be important because it may take a while for all of Debian's Emacs sub-packages (calc, bbdb, gnus, psgml, ...) to be updated to work with the new major version of Emacs. (In part, the Debian policy arranges things so that a given add-on package can tell which Emacs "flavor" it's being installed for, and can make decisions based on that if necessary.) If Emacs ever had a nominal minor release that was really a major release (which was significantly incompatible in some way), it could cause a painful transition. -- Rob Browning rlb @defaultvalue.org and @debian.org; previously @cs.utexas.edu GPG starting 2002-11-03 = 14DD 432F AE39 534D B592 F9A0 25C8 D377 8C7E 73A4