Re: Proposal for a 22.2/trunk development model

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
>   > I have decided that we should not merge unicode-2 until a couple
>   > of months have gone by and we know what should be done about
>   > Emacs 22.2.  Until then I want to avoid far-reaching changes in
>   > the trunk.  Please stop making a fuss about a couple of months.
>   > 
>   > However, it is ok to add new features which are not so
>   > far-reaching in their effects on the code.  Even the multi-tty
>   > branch could be merged in (once we decide what to do about the
>   > environment).
>
> This development model would undoubtedly achieve the goal of being
> able to make a high quality 22.2 release.

Undoubtedly?  Richard is talking about the trunk, you are talking
about 22.2 which is to be done off EMACS_22_BASE.  So I don't see the
two areas actually related, _unless_ one plans to _scrap_
EMACS_22_BASE and basically copy trunk over it.  Which nobody has
proposed, and which I'd consider an even worse idea than quite a few
others I have blown my top over.

> Here is a proposal that would still achieve the same goal, with the
> added advantage that it would get us closer to a future 23.1 release
> at a higher speed:
>  * ask for 2-3 (or more) volunteers that would: 
>      - backport all the changes that you'd consider important from
>      trunk to the 22.x branch
>      - develop fixes for bugs that only occur on the 22.x branch
>      - analyze the reported 22.1 bugs and fix them or ask for help to
>      fix them

I think that analyzing and fixing reported bugs should remain the
responsibility of every developer: we don't want to have something as
important as that go through the 22.x bottleneck.

>      - ask you to stop all development on the trunk until some critical
>      bug is fixed on the branch.

Huh?  Care for an example, hypothetical if you like?

>  * open the trunk for any new development
>    Now, during the summer, is a very good time to allow for more
>    development to happen: a lot of people have more free time, we'd
>    want them to use that time for emacs as much as possible.

The trunk _has_ been formally opened for new development.  It is just
several people have dissenting ideas about what this does and what it
should mean.

> Do you find such a plan acceptable? IMHO a plan like this would
> satisfy the people that ask for more development on the trunk.

In the end, it does not matter what words we put into a plan.  It only
counts what we will be doing.

> PS: In order to reduce the number of messages on the list, please
> allow RMS to reply to this and agree/disagree with the principle of
> this before posting alternate better plans or improvements to this
> one.

Richard already _did_ declare the trunk open for new development.
Getting him to agree again seems pretty pointless: in the abstract, we
already _have_ consensus.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum