Re: strange emacs 21.4 on ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/emacs

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>> Am I the only one who finds himself very much surprised that even
>>> though he's a fairly active contributor and reads emacs-devel,
>>> emacs-pretest-bug, gnu.emacs.help, gnus.emacs.bug,
>>> gnu.emacs.announce, and a few more places, he has not seen any
>>> announcement (let alone discussion) of this new release?
>
>> This question is rhetorical.
>
> Partly.  But maybe I had missed the announcement/discussion.
>
>> It would not appear, however, that either of our opinions would have
>> any relevance, anyway, so we might just stop musing about such things.
> [...]
>> I propose that we now, where another renaming of everything has
>> seemingly become necessary, decide to call the next major release
>
> Your first two lines above should make it clear to you that the
> second two lines would be a waste of time.

The work to rename versions throughout a release to arrive at a
consistent set is nontrivial and nothing that I expect a single person
to do in the time frame for an emergency release such as the latest
one we have seen.  And an emergency release is unlikely to occur from
the trunk.

Under the premise that 21.4 as a release number is here to stay,
version numbers all over the trunk will have to be changed, again.
IIRC, it was a work of several days for a single volunteer last time.
This work is not immediately tied to a release.  If the release
system/scripts don't accommodate emergency releases like 21.3a, as
established facts make it appear, then it would seem that we better
keep 21.5 off from both announcements and code, as the number might be
needed sooner than anticipated.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum