Bug in upset? [Was: Re: R: Problem [1.7]: link /bin/lzma -> xz]

Charles Wilson cygwin@cwilson.fastmail.fm
Thu Mar 26 04:14:00 GMT 2009


Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 02:02:00PM -0400, Charles Wilson wrote:
>> Well, that's really off-point, because...
> 
> No, actually it's not.
> 
> But, a digression...
> you haven't bothered to include a "Thank you" or "I'm sorry to
> have bothered you".

You're right.  Thank you.  Sorry to have bothered you.

> So now that I'm not digressing, I'm disheartened that I have to argue
> for code stabilization prior to a major release point.  I fully
> understand that no one likes having to exercise discipline around a
> release.  I don't enjoy waiting or managing branches myself.  And, I can
> understand that most people would not voluntarily adopt a release
> "freeze" if no one else was doing it.  So, since there was no policy in
> place, there was no reason for any package maintainer to be thinking
> along those lines.  I didn't think I'd have to argue for the wisdom of
> such a proven release policy, though.

If we really -- really and truly, actually, honest-to-god
swear-on-the-bible -- intend to release cygwin-1.7 real soon now (and
not "Real Soon Now(tm)" -- then by all means, let's go to package
freeze.  (Notwithstanding Yaakov's desire to do a flag day,
backwards-incompatible, "rebuild everything with the spiffy new gcc4 for
the spiffy new cygwin-1.7)

But I'm game for a freeze. The reason I've been doing my flurry of
rebuilds was specifically to prepare FOR the cygwin-1.7 release.  But if
we go to package freeze, I've got plenty of other things to do with my time.

> But, I can't say that I actually care that much.  My opinion was
> indirectly solicited so I offered it.  The bottom line is that, no, I'm
> not going to change release-2 from being a unionfs.  We can easily and
> slowly transition in this direction without the requirement of a
> wholesale switch.

OK.  I didn't complain about the unionfs -- I only described *my*
mistake in working *with* unionfs. And now that you've pointed how I
should have been doing it all along, I doubt I'll have any more hassles
along that line.

> I have not yet decided if sourceware will continue to run a copy of
> upset on the old Cygwin 1.5 release directory when 1.7 goes live.  I
> suspect that it will not.

At the risk of continuing a contentious thread, is this is a policy
change?  I'm honestly not sure:

Corinna said (2008 Apr 24) (in response to Yaakov's question):
>>* for how long will maintainers be expected to maintain two sets of
>> releases?
>
> Until we are all more or less confident that we can release 1.7 and
> its packages to the world.

Eric Blake issued his opinion:
> IMHO, only until 1.7 is released.  After that, the 1.5 tree will be left
> to grow weeds and drift off into the mists of time.  Of course, if you
> feel like releasing updates into the 1.5 tree (e.g. security patches)
> I'm sure that would be fine, but I don't think there's any expectation
> of service once 1.7 is finally out the door and made current.  But this
> is all just MHO, others may have a different view.

I thought there was some mention of supporting updates in the (legacy)
release/ area -- especially security fixes -- at the maintainer's
discretion.  But (a) if upset doesn't regen setup.ini, then the
maintainer can upload new packages all day long to no effect, and (b) I
can't find any actual statement in the archives supporting my recollection.

So, maybe "once 1.7 goes live, 1.5 is dead. deceased. joined the choir
invisible. frozen solid and kept for historical interest only. Want
newer stuff, security fixes, bug fixes?  Leave win9x and use 1.7"
is/was/has-been the policy all along and doesn't represent a change.
Can you or Corinna clarify that?

--
Chuck



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