On 05.11.2013 23:02, Andreas Stieger wrote: > Hello, > > On 04/11/13 23:39, Ben Reser wrote: >> One of the things we discussed in Berlin was that we wanted to produce alphas >> off trunk so that users would have an earlier opportunity to provide >> feedback. >> >> Branko has been proding me for the past two weeks to get a 1.9.0 alpha >> started. >> So to that end I'd like to suggest that next week we produce a 1.9.0-alpha1 >> off trunk. > Isn't "producing an alpha" essentially just the same as pointing people > at a specific tarball made from a trunk revision that the project > considers worthy of testing? This already exists: > http://subversion.apache.org/source-code.html#nightlies > http://ci.apache.org/projects/subversion/nightlies/index.html > I don't suppose you want whole signing off dance?
Yes. It's still an Apache release, which is a bit different from checking out trunk or some grabbing some randomly generated tarballs. > This being a source based release, any alpha tester would already know > how to get and a build form a nightly tarball or source tree checkout. > > So doesn't this just boil down to a project communication to the > intended audience outlining the state of development and inviting > specific testing and feedback from interested users? That is, unless you > also reach out to distribution package maintainers, binary vendors and > integrators who may produce (properly marked) binaries? > > Also, mind you, if you produce an alpha you encourage feedback on it > while discouraging anything on changes later in trunk until you produce > another. How does this compare to "test trunk@123 which has XZY, which > we call alphaN"? Not at all. Alpha doesn't mean that features and APIs are cast in concrete. Rather, it's a chance for interested parties to give feedback /before/ they're finalized. And it's easier to actually find interested parties if you give them a "blessed" release rather than expecting them to look for a random trunk revision. -- Brane -- Branko Čibej | Director of Subversion WANdisco // Non-Stop Data e. br...@wandisco.com
