kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[John Beard <john.j.beard@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I have a few questions about the plan of action for the start of the
v6 development window. I feel that since the 5.1.0 bug list[1] is
dwindling, there are probably a few people around who are just waiting
for a green light on v6.

So that they can organise any pending patches better, I'd like to ask
about the plan for v6 development opening. As far as I am aware, we
will need to juggle the following tasks:

1) Removal of legacy canvases and supporting code
2) Further surgery on eeschema w.r.t. modern tool framework
3) New symbol format work (hopefully relatively self-contained in the
plugin architecture)
4) Merging of various completed features from people who have them
stored up since before v5 release
5) Normal ongoing bug fixing and development in the background

There order this happens in will be quite important - if the legacy
removal/eeschema tooling happens first, the features might not merge
cleanly, but at the same time, legacy brings its own ongoing technical
debt. If we can set the order down before the v6 floodgates open, at
least we can approach the incoming patches in a systematic way.
Specifically, if a major legacy-based refactor is anticipated soon
after v6 opens, people should expect major rebasing to be required for
incoming features.

I don't really have any personal preference, as I don't have patches
that are both urgent and impractical to rebase if needed.

Perhaps a cursory survey of the work people expect to merge after v6
might be in order? Links to git branches, etc?

Cheers,

John

[1]: https://launchpad.net/kicad/+milestone/5.1.0