From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [jerome.marant@free.fr: Re: Possible help with stable Emacs releases.] Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:15:40 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <1096291271.415813c757a26@imp6-q.free.fr> <20040927134714.GA20012@fencepost> <87hdphx91c.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> <87655wswkv.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> <01c4a6f8$Blat.v2.2.2$f6ef61c0@zahav.net.il> <20040930143404.GB2296@fencepost> <01c4a703$Blat.v2.2.2$9a627220@zahav.net.il> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1096571791 1720 80.91.229.6 (30 Sep 2004 19:16:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:16:31 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 30 21:16:25 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1CD6Ph-0007lZ-00 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 21:16:25 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CD6W6-000683-DR for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:23:02 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CD6Vx-00067y-Ps for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:22:53 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CD6Vx-00067m-CU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:22:53 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CD6Vx-00067j-AF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:22:53 -0400 Original-Received: from [69.168.110.189] (helo=rattlesnake.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CD6P4-0005VD-If for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:15:46 -0400 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:15:40 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-reply-to: <01c4a703$Blat.v2.2.2$9a627220@zahav.net.il> (eliz@gnu.org) 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:27740 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:27740 As I understand, we are talking about two different entities: * Debian, who only work with releases from the Emacs developers * Emacs, the developers, who work with CVS The Debian people have been making Debian packages out of Emacs for years. They are not planning on becoming Emacs developers. They have not and are *not* proposing to test a release from _Emacs_ developers. The Debian people are proposing 1. to continue to make Debian packages out of Emacs releases, and, 2. occasionally to fix bugs in their packages, which means making new Debian packages. They hope to get their bug fixes from the Emacs CVS development trunk, but they are not, themselves proposing to do any of the pretesting needed for a release from _Emacs_ developers. In other words, the Debian people are *not* proposing to do a `pretest' as Emacs developers understand it. They are proposing to back port some bug fixes to an old version previously released by Emacs developers. Currently, the Debian Emacs has a version number that looks like this: 21.3+1 (I just checked using `apt-cache show emacs21'; the full Debian Emacs version number is `21.3+1-7' but my understanding is that the `7' merely means this is the 7th Debian package of this series and is as irrelevant to us as the fourth component of my emacs-version is to you.) Should the Debian version number remain like that or should it be changed? For example, it might be changed to: 21.3.1 and be distinguished from the version number of the current CVS, which looks like this: 21.3.50 The advantage of a closer connection with the Debian people is that we can be more confident in our pretests that some of the bug fixes will work (probabilistically speaking). This is because the Debian people will have backported them and tested them on a previous release. (This does not mean that the changes will be without bugs in the new release; it means that they worked for the previous release. Pretesting will still be necessary. But, probabilistically speaking, we can be somewhat more confident.) -- Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc