Re: Patch policy for branches

[Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at cs dot tamu dot edu>]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006, Mark Mitchell wrote:

| In the past, we've had a confusing situation for users, in which
| "upgrading" from one branch to another could result in known
| regressions.  In particular, consider our current situation:
|
| * GCC 4.0.2 is the latest release on the 4.0 branch.
|
| * GCC 4.1 will be released soon.
|
| * GCC 4.0.3 will be released at some time in the future.
|
| Suppose that after GCC 4.1, we fix a bug, applying the fix to both the
| 4.0 and 4.1 branches.  Then, we release GCC 4.0.3, before GCC 4.1.1.
| The result is then that a user who uses GCC 4.0.3, and upgrades to GCC
| 4.1.0, sees a regression for the bug in question.  That seems confusing.
|
| We didn't use to have this problem because we use to have only one
| active release branch.  However, for a while now, we've had at least
| two, and sometimes three, active release branches, responding to a
| demand from some users for longer lifetimes for our release branches.
| So, now we have the problem outlined above.
|
| The best solution I can think of is to synchronize releases across
| active branches so that GCC 4.0.3 and GCC 4.1.0 would be released
| simultaneously.  The other option would be to postpone applying patches
| on the 4.0 branch until after a 4.1 release has been made with that
| patch applied, but that seems administratively difficult.

I agree with the last observation.

| As RM, I am willing to manage the releases of two active branches
| together.  I've already announced that 4.0.3 would be released shortly
| after 4.1.0, so I think we can achieve near-simultaneous release of
| 4.0.3 with 4.1.0, and the 3.4.x branch is official dead at this point.
| However, assuming that Gaby plans to take over the 4.0.x branch (does
| he?), then I would need Gaby's buy-in to ensure simultaneity going forward.

I agree with your general plan.

I planned to release GCC-3.4.6 at the end of this month.  So, I think
we can proceed with for your outlined plan for GCC-4.0.x and upward.

-- Gaby