Re: [Gimp-developer] 2019 project report

[Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre prokoudine gmail com>]

On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 7:22 PM Christopher Curtis wrote:

> In that thread from 2012 I proposed a 3-month release cycle. This is, and was,
> a slightly slower pace than that used by the Linux kernel. The number is arbitrary
> but I still think the results will be worthwhile. With 3 releases in 2019, a 4-month
> process may be a good place to start.

Personally, I can see this happening for the stable series, i.e. what
is now the 2.10.x branch. Our build process is now more or less
automated for flatpak (Linux) and dmg (macOS), and we think we can do
that for WIndows eventually. That simplifies quite a lot of work,
although the last few Win/Mac updates required manual intervention. In
fact, we recently put two updated Windows installers — one because of
an important fix in GEGL, and one because of a fix for a broken 3rd
party component.

As for the release frequency, we try to make a release around LGM
time, which is usually April-May, we did 2.10.6 and 2.10.12 in the
summer time, and we did 2.10.8 and 2.10.14 in late autumn before the
Xmas madness. That already sounds like a plan.

That said, I don't think it's entirely possible for the unstable
branch. Mitch keeps uncovering bad code all the time, and once you
start pulling a funny-smelling rope, there's always a chance there's a
rotting corpse on the other end of it, if you pardon my analogy :)

Alex