[Development] Focusing bug fixes to 5.9 branch and patch releases during H1/17

[Sean Harmer]

On Wednesday 15 February 2017 11:52:50 Shawn Rutledge wrote:
> > On 15 Feb 2017, at 11:11, Marc Mutz <marc.mutz at kdab.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Wednesday 15 February 2017 10:36:33 Sean Harmer wrote:
> > 
> >> First of all, apologies for not being able to make the release meeting
> >> yesterday. I was in a workshop all day.
> >> 
> >> For the record I think skipping 5.8.1 is a big mistake. I would much
> >> rather
 delay 5.9 by a few weeks and have a 5.8.1 release out than skip
> >> it and try for a quick 5.9.0.
> > 
> > 
> > Amen.
> > 
> > I would like to add that this decision, made behind closed doors, does not
> > 
 match well with Qt-as-an-open-governance-project. In particular, it
> > feels like we OSS contributors are being held hostage here. If you close
> > the 5.8 CI, anything we can do, incl. following the dictate of TQC to
> > focus on 5.9, will hurt Qt users one way or another. Either we fragment
> > Qt by releasing a 5.8.1 without TQC backing or we leave users hanging in
> > the air for extended periods of time without the ability for bugfixes.
> > Both are unacceptable, IMHO.
> 
> There are a lot of potential bug fixes.  Skipping 5.8.1 might pull some
> users into upgrading to 5.9 sooner than they might otherwise, which is good
> from one side, but the ones who are afraid of new features and new
> regressions will resist.  So I think it’s a mistake because of those
> people… but I always think those people should be less afraid of new
> releases, too.  (Just try it… how bad can it be.  Soon enough you will know
> if there are regressions that affect you.  If so, get patches for them and
> apply them locally.  If there’s no patch, write one and contribute.  That
> helps everyone.)

That assumes users a) have the ability, b) have the time, c) have company 
permission to create such patches. And regressions like this can prevent users 
from upgrading to new feature releases. As a case in point, see

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-58679
 
> Some Linux distros will pull in some newer patches for their custom 5.8.0
> builds.

Sure, but what about Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, ... ?
 
> FWIW the discussion was on #qt-releases, not exactly behind closed doors.

The initial discussion was announced by Tuukka as the OP of this thread which  
presented it as pretty much a done deal. And, as Marc says, if the Qt Project 
disagrees, what can we do about it without fragmenting?

Cheers,

Sean
-- 
Dr Sean Harmer | sean.harmer at kdab.com | Managing Director UK
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