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Message-ID: <018c01c2c627$2d388c20$78d96f83@pomello>
From: "Max Bowsher" <maxb AT ukf DOT net>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>, "William A. Hoffman" <billlist AT nycap DOT rr DOT com>
References: <5 DOT 2 DOT 0 DOT 9 DOT 0 DOT 20030127112956 DOT 01136520 AT pop DOT nycap DOT rr DOT com>
Subject: Re: Cygwin Release process
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:11:48 -0000
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William A. Hoffman wrote:
> What I am suggesting is taking the same approach as Debian.
> Each package in Debian is in one of these states:
> Stable, Testing, or Unstable.
>
> Stable packages - should work.

We have this. Its called [curr]

> Testing packages - working on becoming the next stable version
> Unstable packages - all other packages, might be working towards
> Testing status.

We don't differentiate these. We call such packages [test].

> At some point in time, all Stable packages are collected up, and
> a Stable Debian release is made.   Only security patches can be
> applied to the packages that make up a stable release.

This requires a large amount of organization. It's not going to happen. It's
also unneccessary since [curr] should be stable anyway, at any point.

> I think it is very important to have an entire cygwin that is stable.
> As it is now, when you run Setup, you have no idea what you will get.
> It is likely to be very different than the machine you did last week.

Cygwin works on a basis of continual upgrades. If this worries you, then
burn a CD, or create a network share. Instant frozen version.

> Almost every time I update cygwin I get some sort of unexpected
> problem.
> Last time it was the ntsecurity stuff, that is now fixed, but for a
> week or two,
> the "Stable" cygwin, did not work on networked XP machines.   Just
> this
> last time, I got a copy of tclsh83.exe installed into /usr/bin that
> does
> not follow the naming convention, (it should be cygtclsh83)   This
> caused
> problems on my machine.

It's obvious (in hindsight) that the ntsec change should have been done much
slower, or not at all.

Things like this haven't happened often, and I imagine that the lesson of
the ntsec change will be remembered.

> If I run Setup today, I may get some other problem.

You might. But its very unlikely. There are very many people running a
continuously updated Cygwin. Even if a problem arises, you can always roll
back a version.

> There really needs to be a stable snapshot of the entire cygwin.

Do you volunteer to maintain such a thing? If not, who do you expect to do
it?

> It would be a known quantity, with expected problems.


> It is much like working with CVS.
> You have periodic releases of the software that are put on a CVS
> release branch, the branch only gets serious errors fixes, but no
> new development is done on the branch. Brave folks and developers,
> that need the current development, can
> cvs update from the main tree.

And many small projects use CVS, but don't do branches, because there are
not enough developers to support seperate streams of development.

> I realize that software changes quickly, but there are folks that
> just want to use cygwin. We still have machines that ran setup a
> year ago, and for what they need to do, cygwin works fine. I really
> do not think it would be that much to ask for a stable snapshot of
> the all the packages in cygwin three times a year. Only serious
> bugs and security problems can be patched on
> the packages in the release of cygwin.
>
> "Moving to Fast" is exactly the problem.   You can not have stable
> and fast moving development at the same time.  Stable means working and
un-changed.
>
> Lets say I have ten computers that I want to install cygwin on.   If
> I go around
> to each computer and run setup, by the time I am done, I could have
> 10 different installations of cygwin, and each computer may run
> slightly different.   I do not
> see how that is stable.
>
> stable:
> - Resistant to change of position or condition; not easily moved or
> disturbed: a house built on stable ground; a stable platform.
> - Not subject to sudden or extreme change or fluctuation: a stable
> economy; a stable currency.

You made your point several paragraphs ago. Now you're ranting.
As I said above: You want a snapshot? Make one. Download, burn to CD or put
on internal network. Done.

> As a whole cygwin is a very un-stable platform, because each of the
> packages that make up cygwin, are in constant motion.

My experience does not support this opinion.


Max.


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