Re: It is time for a feature freeze (it is NOW or never).

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
> I'd offer a very slightly different schedule:

I think this is the best plan for Emacs users and for Emacs developers.
I have only a few comments.

> (2) Feature freeze on the trunk NOW

Please announce a day for feature freeze ~1-2 weeks from now,
to give a chance to submit latest features.

> (3) Start pretest from the trunk (maybe after fixing known bugs, but there
>     doesn't seem to be many of those, so it seems unnecessary).

This shouldn't take too long given the fact that CVS Emacs is already
under constant testing.

> (4) When bug-fixing starts to slow down such that some developers feel bored,
>     make a new RC branch and move the bug-fixing and pretesting there.
>     Those people who are bored can start playing on the trunk again.
> (5a) Finish bug-fixing RC and finally Release.
> (5b) Merge unicode, multi-tty, and bidi (in this order, but quickly) to the
>     trunk.  Branches basically don't get any testing and waste too much of
>     our energy with merging, so we should only keep them for code that's
>     really unstable or that we don't know whether we'll ever include.
>     E.g. if bidi only crashed when you set enable-bidi-display, then it's
>     ready for inclusion.
>     I'd also like to see the emacs-xft (anti-aliasing) merged in, but AFAIK
>     it's not ready yet.
> (6) Almost immediately after that: goto number (2).

After merging unicode, multi-tty, and bidi, when most developers will
start to use them, new bugs will be discovered and new related features
will be proposed, so most probably the next release will be postponed
for more than a half-year.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/