Re: [BuildStream] Buildstream releasing model

[Tristan Van Berkom <tristan vanberkom codethink co uk>]

Hi all,

On Mon, 2018-07-30 at 16:51 +0200, Paul Sherwood via Buildstream-list wrote:
> Hi folks,
> as discussed on IRC today (from [1] onwards) I (and others) think that 
> the BuildStream releasing model is confusing for new users and would 
> like to suggest that we change it now, rather than later.

After a phone conversation with Paul, we have cleared some things up
which I should post back here for the benefit of the readership.

Essentially, Paul has listed a set of technical requirements, and I
have explained how the current branching strategy effectively meets
these requirements.

There are two essential things which have fallen out from this
discussion, of course the situation is never perfectly ideal, these
things are:

  * We definitely need a way to communicate to users which release
    tag is currently blessed.

    In the 1.1.x dev cycle, we needed to recommend the master branch
    and I think this was less problematic, now it most certainly needs
    a fix.

    At least the install guide should communicate this clearly, but
    we definitely need this to be on our non-existent website, and we
    should make sure that a website which materializes:

      o Has an RSS news feed where release announcements also go, so
        any interested parties can subscribe to updates.

      o Has a clear statement of which tag we currently recommend to
        users, this should always be kept up to date with every
        release (and should be automatable I think).

        In the future when non-Linux platforms are supported, we
        should also have a download link for the latest installer in
        the same place, IMO.

  * We need to remove the word "stable" from our vocabulary when
    describing the blessed release tag/line which users should use.

    I believe this is mostly a matter of perception, and while I am
    reluctant to use nomanclature that deviates from the standard,
    I remain sensitive to Paul's concerns that users do not understand
    the same thing as what upstream means when the word "stable" is
    used.

    For this, I think we can:

      o Call "stable releases"      -> "releases"
      o Call "development releases" -> "development snapshots"
      o Call "stable branches"      -> "release branches"

    As the particular names that we employ are the least of my
    concerns, I remain completely open to anything else people want
    to call these things.


Paul, I think this is accurate, but please let me know if the above is
inaccurate.

Cheers,
    -Tristan