From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: Periodical releases Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:14:26 -0800 Message-ID: References: <71588355363047528F16FE989690A488@us.oracle.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1325542498 536 80.91.229.12 (2 Jan 2012 22:14:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 22:14:58 +0000 (UTC) Cc: 'Eli Zaretskii' , monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "'Carsten Mattner'" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 02 23:14:51 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Rhq9a-0007AD-6x for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:14:50 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41709 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rhq9Z-0003Bg-Kf for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:14:49 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:37121) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rhq9W-0003BL-1d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:14:47 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rhq9V-0006cw-1K for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:14:46 -0500 Original-Received: from rcsinet15.oracle.com ([148.87.113.117]:29459) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Rhq9T-0006cc-3Z; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:14:43 -0500 Original-Received: from ucsinet22.oracle.com (ucsinet22.oracle.com [156.151.31.94]) by rcsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.4/Switch-3.4.4) with ESMTP id q02MEe16030994 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Mon, 2 Jan 2012 22:14:41 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt356.oracle.com (acsmt356.oracle.com [141.146.40.156]) by ucsinet22.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q02MEdZq020576 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Mon, 2 Jan 2012 22:14:40 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt110.oracle.com (abhmt110.oracle.com [141.146.116.62]) by acsmt356.oracle.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id q02MEdUE015160; Mon, 2 Jan 2012 16:14:39 -0600 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/10.159.57.64) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:14:38 -0800 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: Thread-Index: AczJlLs067nc0o1GRuqvwcUEhzsv+QAAORtQ X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 X-Source-IP: ucsinet22.oracle.com [156.151.31.94] X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090202.4F022C51.0076,ss=1,re=0.000,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-Received-From: 148.87.113.117 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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 Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:147198 Archived-At: > > But in no case should that difficulty/nuisance of building > > be an excuse for releasing the product before it is fully baked. > > I don't mind building my emacs. Great. But you did cite "less of a need to build emacs manually" as an argument why releases should be more frequent. > It's a nuisance to have years old Emacs version in distributions. Why? What's the nuisance? Anyway, you build Emacs yourself from trunk as often as you like, and you don't mind doing so. Where's the beef? > To get a less buggy Emacs a better approach is releasing it > more often so that there are more testers who wouldn't even consider > building manually or install a prebuilt snapshot from trunk. Bon sang mais c'est bien sur! Ye olde cathedrale vs bazaar song... There are already plenty of pre-release bugs reported, needing to be fixed. Maybe when they are fixed you can argue that Emacs should be released to get more testers. For now, there seem to be enough people using pre-release builds that give rise to bug reports. More input is always welcome of course, but Emacs users are not _only_ testers and fixers. FWIW, where I work the default, prebuilt Emacs for developers on GNU/Linux is Emacs 21.3.1! And my impression is that few of them bother to build a more recent version. They are seemingly not clamouring for a new version, especially since there are already 6 (!) releases available more recent than the one they use. (Some of them still use XEmacs, and apparently happily so.) It's sometimes good to step back a bit and imagine that not all, or even most, Emacs users are involved in, or even interested in, Emacs development. Ponder... Hard to fathom, I know. Many, probably most, users use Emacs the way I use my car: just to get around and do the things I need to do. I don't work on the engine; I don't want to understand the electrical system; and I upgrade only when the old horse just can't make it around the block anymore even with a little coaxing. Now I'm sure carmakers do not consider me their prime marketing target, and I'm perhaps not a typical car owner. But they really do need to sell new cars, to stay in business. They need new models each year - periodic releases. We're not selling cars, and we're not even in business. We're not in a race or a competition for market share. We cannot go out of business. We improve Emacs only because we want it to be better or we enjoy improving it or both - intrinsic reward. And there's no hurry in that.