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toddos · 01-10-2011, 04:21 AM

I agree with both Kovid and kevinrs. Please keep the quick series of incremental upgrades coming. I love being on the bleeding edge (I used to run debian sid, back when I actually had time to mess with stuff like that). However there should be a "stable" or "long-term" release that would allow folks to download a known-good version, that could be packaged into linux distros without being immediately out of date, and ideally that would have bug fixes available (for serious bugs only).

On the other hand, release management is costly and time consuming. Regressions in calibre are rarely so bad that you can't live with them for a day or two while the dev team gets out a fix (and they're surprisingly quick at getting out fixes). Naming a "stable" release without a mechanism to maintain that release would do more harm than good, so if it doesn't come along with full release management, maintenance trees, bug fixes on the stable release, etc, then I'd rather it not be done.

Addendum: Calibre is still pre-1.0. Until it hits the big 1.0, maintaining a stable release is probably not a good idea. However as part of getting to 1.0, I think release management and maintenance of the stable branch would have to be seriously considered. I hope development continues apace once 1.0 finally drops, but at the same time that implies the software is mature and thus needs a mechanism of maintaining the 1.0 codebase separate from the subsequent 2.0 work.

01-10-2011, 04:21 AM	#9
toddos Guru Posts: 695 Karma: 822675 Join Date: May 2010 Device: Kobo Aura, Nokia Lumia 920 (Freda)	I agree with both Kovid and kevinrs. Please keep the quick series of incremental upgrades coming. I love being on the bleeding edge (I used to run debian sid, back when I actually had time to mess with stuff like that). However there should be a "stable" or "long-term" release that would allow folks to download a known-good version, that could be packaged into linux distros without being immediately out of date, and ideally that would have bug fixes available (for serious bugs only). On the other hand, release management is costly and time consuming. Regressions in calibre are rarely so bad that you can't live with them for a day or two while the dev team gets out a fix (and they're surprisingly quick at getting out fixes). Naming a "stable" release without a mechanism to maintain that release would do more harm than good, so if it doesn't come along with full release management, maintenance trees, bug fixes on the stable release, etc, then I'd rather it not be done. Addendum: Calibre is still pre-1.0. Until it hits the big 1.0, maintaining a stable release is probably not a good idea. However as part of getting to 1.0, I think release management and maintenance of the stable branch would have to be seriously considered. I hope development continues apace once 1.0 finally drops, but at the same time that implies the software is mature and thus needs a mechanism of maintaining the 1.0 codebase separate from the subsequent 2.0 work. Last edited by toddos; 01-10-2011 at 04:24 AM.