Re: [BuildStream] Buildstream releasing model

[Agustín Benito Bethencourt <agustin benito codethink co uk>]

Hi,

On Thursday, 2 August 2018 08:28:11 CEST Tristan Van Berkom via 
Buildstream-list wrote:
> 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.

This will depend on having a website or not for this release. My plan is to 
use what we have for now. With a month to go, anything else would be to run 
unnecessarily. We will use the wiki. I hope that, for ELCE, we can have a 
web with this capability, among others.

>       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).

This will be part of the content improvements we will do for the release. A 
critical path will be defined for newcomers where all the basic info they 
need will be coherently defined.

>         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.

There will be a Download page. In that page we will provide links to all 
versions, all platforms and the documentation needed to consider when 
installing BuildStream. We will also provide a link to the release notes 
and the known issues page.

The above is nothing but playing by the book when it comes to Open Source 
projects/products. I will send a mail about it.

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


I will open a new thread for this. I have been thinking about it and I have 
to recognize I haven't come with a great solution. I will need help from 
readers.
>     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.

I have opinions about the above. In a new thread.....


> Cheers,
>     -Tristan
>
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-- 
Agustín Benito Bethencourt
Principal Consultant
Codethink Ltd
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