[ruby-core:29882] Plan to Support Levels for Ruby 1.9.2

HI,

Before release of Ruby 1.9.2, I would like to define a new guideline
of the support levels for Ruby 1.9.2.

== Definition of the support levels
The Ruby 1.9 series have four support levels.

(1) Supported:
  We ensure Ruby works fine before release. I do not release Ruby when
an issue (†1) remains on a supported platform.

  A platform can be "supported" when:
  * Ruby is maintained on it (†2),
  * And Ruby passes almost all the test cases and RubySpec on it,
  * And we have a continuous build environment for Ruby on it,
  * And it have been "supported" or "best effort" for more than an year.

(2) Best effort:
  We are trying making Ruby to work fine on it.
  I do not release Ruby when an serious issue remains on a best effort platform.

  A platform can be "best effort" when:
  * Ruby is maintained on it,
  * And Ruby passes most of the test cases and RubySpec on it

(3) Perhaps:
  We think Ruby works on it, however, we do not care about it.
  I sometimes release Ruby even if there are issues on it.

  A platform can be "perhaps" when:
  * A similar platform is "supported" or "best effort",
  * Or Ruby is maintained on it
  * Or a patch is recently applied for Ruby on the platform, and it is
reported that Ruby works fine on it because of the patch.

(4) Not supported:
  We do not think Ruby works on it. A patch is always welcome.
  * Any other systems


†1:
  A "Issue" means one on the redmine (http://redmine.ruby-lang.org )
†2:
  Ruby is "maintained" on a platform when:
  * At least one committer always develops Ruby on the platform
  * Or there is an assigned maintainer of Ruby for it

== List of candidate platforms
Candidate for the "supported" platforms of Ruby 1.9.2 is only
  * Debian GNU/Linux stable version on i386
  however the following two platforms can be the candidates if a
continuous build environment is available:
  * Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6 on Intel
  * FreeBSD 6 or later (amd64, IA32)

Candidates for the "best effort platforms" are:
  * Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6 on Intel
  * FreeBSD 6 or later (amd64, IA32)
  * Solaris 10 / OpenSolaris
  * mswin32, mswin64, mingw32
  * AIX 5.3 on PowerPC

AIX will be possibly "perhaps". It depends on progress of development.

Candidates for the "perhaps" platforms are:
  * Other versions of Debian GNU/Linux.
    * or stable version on other architectures
  * Other Linux distributions
  * Mac OS X 10.5 on PPC
  * cygwin
  * Other POSIX-compatible systems
  * BeOS (Haiku)

Another platform can be a candidate for "best effort" or "perhaps".
You can add your platform to the list by satisfying the following
definition.
Let us know if you have a continuous build environment.

== Schedule
2010-06-15:
  The list of candidates will be fixed.
2010-06-30:
  The supported platforms and the support levels will be fixed.


Thank you,
-- Yuki Sonoda (Yugui)