Forum: CFEngine Help Subject: cfengine design decisions: release schedule Author: davidlee Link to topic: https://cfengine.com/forum/read.php?3,24370,24370#msg-24370
cfengine design isn't just about the provided software and our configuration files. It is also about a long-term commitment by a site to trust its system maintenance to the technology. Bugs are inevitable. Bugs cause local incidents (to use ITIL-speak) requiring local workarounds. Bugs also require fixes to the underlying problems, not just for the sites that report them, but also as a preventative measure for other sites. But there doesn't seem to be a release policy or schedule for cfengine. Shouldn't there be one? Perhaps every two months? And to have this simply as a matter of course, following the "release early, release often" principle? This should be a matter of habit, of routine. The current scheme seems somewhat random in time, and tends to produce infrequent, but big-hurdle, releases, and to fail to address significant, promise-breaking, bugs in a timely manner. Neither does there seem to be a policy for "quick fix" releases. When 3.2.1 came out, which was a big step, there were some problems for some sites. So 3.2.3 was released shortly afterwards. That's good. But there is at least one remaining problem (839), causing segfaults, whose lack of a released fix is forcing sites to stay back on the old 3.1.x, and with no resolution in sight. If cfengine is supposed to be about the making and keeping of promises, then it fails badly if it segfaults on us. Even if this doesn't warrant an emergency fix (such as the 3.2.1->3.2.3 fix), at least a regular release schedule would allow us not to be held back on the old 3.1.x series for a long time. _______________________________________________ Help-cfengine mailing list Help-cfengine@cfengine.org https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
