kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

You are preaching to the choir.  I did most of the maintenance on the
4.0 branch.  Initially it was easy but it didn't take long for it to
become a PITA.  If no one else objects, I would be more than happy to
make that the policy.  If that is indeed what we want to do, I would
delete the 5.1 branch.  It will push v6 development back significantly.

On 7/19/2018 11:10 AM, Jon Evans wrote:
> FWIW, as someone who is also maintaining parallel feature branches, I
> agree with Orson and John.  Now that we have committed to this 5.1 idea,
> we should just make it happen in master.  I think if we keep both master
> and 5.1 branch running in parallel, inevitably one or the other of them
> will be less tested / more broken unless people spend a bunch of time
> doing the work of keeping them synchronized manually.  The cost of this
> doesn't seem to outweigh the benefit of being able to merge some 6.0
> features into master sooner.
> 
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:03 AM John Beard <john.j.beard@xxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:john.j.beard@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 1:47 PM, Wayne Stambaugh
>     <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>     > Unless we are going to prohibit new features (new file formats,
>     new tool
>     > framework for eeschema, etc.) from being merged into the dev branch
>     > until 5.1 is released, I disagree.  If we want to only work on 5.1 in
>     > the dev branch, then I'm OK with this proposal.
> 
>     This is essentially my proposal - limit dev branch changes to 5.1
>     features, uncontroversial maintenance and bugfixes.
> 
>     If people want to work on features for 6 now, that can be done in
>     separate branches, and the onus for keeping it rebased onto the 5.1
>     changes is on them, rather than forcing the 5.1 workers to deal with
>     conflicts. Otherwise, whoever is working on 5.1 features like the
>     GTK3/GAL stuff and printing, will have to continually port their work
>     between the two branches.
> 
>     If 5.1 changes are unlikely to be substantially affected by 6.0-facing
>     changes, then perhaps this limitation is not useful.
> 
>     > There should be nothing in the 5.1 branch that is not also in the dev
>     > branch so everything in the 5.1 branch should be tested in the dev
>     > branch builds.
> 
>     In theory, yes, but if fixes need to be manually ported as the
>     branches diverge, it's possible to fail to fix, or break in new ways,
>     one branch or the other. If a 5.1 branch exists in parallel to 6.0,
>     someone will have to take responsibility to ensure the appropriate
>     fixes are identified, ported and tested as needed. In the Linux world,
>     this is the unglamorous, arduous (and vital) job of the stable branch
>     maintainers.
> 
>     I'm not against parallel branches if someone is willing to step up to
>     be a stable branch maintainer for 5.1. In fact, I'd be thrilled to get
>     nice new stuff dropping into the dev branch. However, changes that
>     need to be in both branches are not trivially rebasable, that job will
>     soon become decidedly not-fun.
> 
>     Cheers,
> 
>     John
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
>     <https://launchpad.net/%7Ekicad-developers>
>     Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>     <mailto:kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>     Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
>     <https://launchpad.net/%7Ekicad-developers>
>     More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>