kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Javier Serrano <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 12:10 AM, Rick Walker <walker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Kicad is currently a moving target.  The team doesn't provide "stable"
> builds and the whole system is liable to blow up at any time.  It
> is even worse if one uses the "cloud-based" libraries which are under
> dynamic mutation.

KiCad cannot be anything else than a moving target these days. There
is just too much going on to consider a stable release right now.
FWIW, we at CERN do have the concept of a lightweight stable release
(without backports) in the list of things we'd like to see in the
project in the future. We believe that it will help KiCad in a number
of ways, including Mac support, which has been discussed recently.
Various people will see their work become easier, assuming that we
expect a certain (to be defined) degree of quality from them only (or
mostly) for stable releases. For example:

- People whose task is to ensure KiCad builds and installs seamlessly
in GNU/Linux, Mac and Windows.
- People writing documentation.
- People testing.
- People working on libraries.

It's nice to have a clear objective and a lightweight stable release
will help in that. There has been concern in the past that a stable
release would result in less testing of the non-stable code. We need
to find ways to ensure that the amount of actual testing goes up, not
down. One way would be to have a testing team. If people really see
value in a stable release, some of them should be willing to
contribute some effort to cope with the potentially negative
consequences it could have in some areas of the project.

Regarding your other comments on attitude and such -- and this is not
meant as an answer but just some random thoughts triggered by reading
you --  I have not had any problems disagreeing on particular points
with any of the current core developers. Our discussions have always
been based on respecting people and their points of view, and we have
found that respecting others and contributing code helps a lot in
gaining respect. I am not saying this is the magic solution to
everything. Just that, in my opinion, this has played a key role in
making our participation in KiCad a very pleasurable experience so
far.

My two cents. Cheers,

Javier