[Pan-users] Re: Version of Pan to be shipped with Debian Etch

[Duncan]

=?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren?= Boll Overgaard
<address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Tue, 18 Jul
2006 16:43:25 +0200:

> As some of you may be aware, I've been packaging the pan betas[0] for
> Debian. Also, some of you may be aware that Debian Etch is scheduled for
> release by the end of 2006[1]. This means that in the the not too distant
> future, the Debian testing package archive will be frozen.
> 
> So, my question is: What version of Pan should be distributed in Debian
> Etch? The latest beta, or the older (but presumably more feature complete)
> 0.14.x?
> 
> Personally, I consider the inability to delete servers about the only real
> showstopper in the betas[2].
> 
> Charles, what would you prefer?

Not Charles, but IMO it would be /nice/ if both an old and a new version
could be shipped, since the new version is still missing functionality
that the old one has that's very useful for text groups (and that will
remain the case until post 1.0), while the new one works FAR better for
large binary groups or for binary harvesting off of multiple servers.

In any case, if at all possible with the new version, consider waiting
until 1.0 ships.  From what Charles has said, it should ship in early
August, barring any show-stopper bugs in the last planned feature addition
(charset selection) before 1.0 ships.  That feature will likely be in
0.104 (July 23), with perhaps a 0.105 after that on the 30th... so the
first August release could well be 1.0, likely August 6th.  If that makes
your freeze deadline, that would be optimal.

Past 1.0, Charles has said there may be a few bugfix releases, 1.0.x,
if needed due to the wider exposure of 1.0.0 stable.  If 1.0 makes the
freeze and it's possible, getting these in would be useful as well, and as
they would be bugfix only, there will be no dependency changes and patches
should be quite limited, but useful to include if possible.

Beyond the 1.0.x bugfixes going into August, 1.0.9x (or 1.0.9xx, not sure),
the 1.1 beta series, should start, likely in late August or early
September, depending on the 1.0.x bugfix series status.  You will NOT want
to ship these in the release, as the early ones will likely be relatively
unstable once again, as new features (with their attendant early bugs) will
again be included.

What that all boils down to is this.  Assuming it's not possible to ship
both an old and a new pan, if you can hold off until 1.0, take the latest
1.0.x (where x<90) possible.  If 1.0 doesn't make the freeze, it's a bit
more iffy.  Personally, I'd then stick with 0.14.2.92 or whatever, but an
argument could certainly be made to go with 0.102 or 0.103 anyway, as they
have been fairly stable.  Whether 0.104 is remains to be seen, but
inclusion of the charset functionality could definitely be argued
to be a good thing in terms of l10n.  However, since it's the last planned
feature before stable, if it's stable enough to run with, you are again
looking straight at 1.0. so it would certainly be preferable if you can
squeeze it in. =8^)



-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman