Re: [BuildStream] Proposal: naming for BuildStream release

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

Hi,

On Thu, 2018-08-02 at 10:40 +0200, Agustín Benito Bethencourt via Buildstream-list wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the current proposal to define names for what we release are:
>
> o Call "stable releases"      -> "releases"
>
> o Call "development releases" -> "development snapshots"
>
> o Call "stable branches"      -> "release branches"
>
> ## Snapshot
>
> Let me start by saying that for many out there, a released snapshot is 
> installable. If we use "snapshot", for something that is not installable, 
> no matter how accurate this term could be, we would be fighting against 
> dragons. I would use a term that introduces little controversy.
>
> Many would expect that a released snapshot of a tool includes an installer. 
> I believe this will not be always the case for us.

Just one thing to add here...

Historically, I can understand the hurdle and extra burden this seems
to impose, as I've been through that and have been notorious for
failing to go through the hassle of providing win32 installers and OSX
bundles in the past.

Presently however, we currently run CI on our release tarballs,
ensuring that the release tarball builds with every commit, and
documentation builds and tests are successful from the release tarball
with every commit.

When we get support for alternative platforms and add any bundles or
installers, I would expect us to have similar CI on every commit, and
would expect that we can automate the process of delivering those
through our website without any hassle at all.

Since point of a development snapshot is for end users who are willing
to test things for us, I think that we should expect to release
whatever those users would need to easily perform testing for us
(especially when it comes to platforms which upstream developers do not
regularly use).

On this basis, I don't think our naming should be driven by the
assumption that we cannot easily provide the installers for development
snapshots.

Cheers,
    -Tristan