From: Michal Suchanek <hramrach@...>
Date: 2007-06-21T01:47:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Question about the patchlevel release cycle

On 20/06/07, Urabe Shyouhei <shyouhei@ruby-lang.org> wrote:
> Hi, I'm the 1.8.6 branch manager.
>
> Sylvain Joyeux wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be possible to have "hotfixes" (i.e.: quick patchlevel
> > releases) when this kind of bugs happen ?
> >
>
> Well, use Subversion.
>
> http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/tags
> http://svn.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/tags/
>
> This time we released particular 1.8.6-p36, but p1 to p35 also exists
> there.  They were not announced because announcing every patches is way
> too annoying.  Imagine more than a dozen of release announcement made in
> a day or two... I bet you just ignore everything.
>
> Anyway 3 months of release interval is not that long I feel.  Remember
> there were only one chance in a year (i.e. 25th Dec.) to release a ruby
> in ancient days.  Releasing too frequently is annoying as I wrote. 3
> months is at once moderately long, moderately short.
>

I think that shortening the release interval is not the thing that is needed.

I would suggest to publish a release candidate tarball, wait for a
month or so, and see how many problems are found.
If there are only minor glitches just fix them and make a release. If
there are many or serious problems, put in the fixes, and publish
another candidate.

Thanks

Michal