On 7 November 2015 at 03:17, Phil Steitz <phil.ste...@gmail.com> wrote: > Here is an idea that might break our deadlock re backward > compatibility, versioning and RERO: > > Agree that odd numbered versions have stable APIs - basically adhere > to Commons rules - no breaks within 3.0, 3.1, ..., 3.x... or 5.0, > 5.1... but even-numbered lines can include breaks - so 4.0 and 4.1 > might not be compatible. We would always maintain both an odd and > even branch - ideally in such a way that when an even numbered line > stabilized it would add a last hurrah of breaks and move to odd. > People wanting stable APIs could just stick with the odd-numbered > lines and [math] developers wanting to experiment with things and > not worry about compatibility could do that in the even-numbered > lines. In effect, this is sort of what we are doing now in 3.x / 4.x. > > I know above violates Commons policy if we actually cut releases > from the even-numbered branches - we would have to get agreement > from the Commons PMC that this is OK or somehow label the releases > differently. Just an idea to get us out of our current bind... >
Other alternatives may be to make extensive use of "milestone" builds to allow Maven Central releases using -M2,-M3/etc., while making it clear to people who are familiar with that schema that the build is unstable, or to use .FINAL in the Spring fashion and use .BETA etc. before that. If the API is constantly in flux for that long, then it doesn't need a full version series, IMO, as people could just be experimenting with .BETA or -M releases to test. At some point it isn't our fault if users do not understand these well-known suffixes as indicating a lack of strict backwards or forwards compatibility. Cheers, Peter --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org
