Pretest? [was: Re: bootstrap problem with union Lisp_Object]

[Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>]

 > > It makes no sense to postpone debugging the bugs we know about
 > > in order to discover more bugs.
 > 
 > Who's talking about postponing debugging of known bugs?
 > 
 > So I disagree!  Some bugs are more severe than others, and one of the
 > most severe has yet to be resolved -- the more people who test
 > the software, the better the chance of narrowing in on that bug.
 > 
 > So let's start the pretest NOW!

We've been here nearly two years ago but I guess things have moved forward
enough so that ideas rejected then might be acceptable now.

When the pretest is released, hopefully soon, I suggest that a branch is cut.
I may be wrong but I think this is usual practice.  I don't think this will
mean that effort will be taken away from the release as many developers have
expressed an interest in seeing one.  It will, however, discourage adding
further changes which are not really bug fixes, and indeed, may introduce new
bugs.  In fact, I think there should be a strict rule that only changes that
relate to identified bugs be allowed on this branch.  There will also an
incentive to get the release out, so that normal development can resume on the
trunk.

Nick