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

[Tuukka Turunen]

From: Development <development-bounces+tuukka.turunen=qt.io at qt-project.org> on behalf of Roland Winklmeier <roland.m.winklmeier at gmail.com>
Date: Friday, 17 February 2017 at 12.20
To: "development at qt-project.org" <development at qt-project.org>
Subject: Re: [Development] Focusing bug fixes to 5.9 branch and patch releases during H1/17

Hi Tuukka,

2017-02-16 17:13 GMT+01:00 Tuukka Turunen <tuukka.turunen at qt.io<mailto:tuukka.turunen at qt.io>>:
As multiple people and teams have planned their development according to initially agreed feature freeze time of Qt 5.9, it would be very inefficient to reopen 5.9 now or postpone getting the release out.

I would use the same argument for all customers and users of Qt who planned their development on a 5.8.1 release, but with my argument that a bug fix release should have priority over a new feature release.


If we can get KDAB and others helping with Qt 5.9 with even remotely similar effort than it would be to create Qt 5.8.1 release I am sure we can make an awesome Qt 5.9.0 ahead of the planned schedule. This means we can make the CI system improvements earlier and thus also have Qt 5.9.1 earlier.

My question might sound sarcastic but it is really serious: Who does guarantee me that a 5.9.1 release won't be dropped again in favor of the 5.10 release schedule? Maybe I'm not familiar with the process and details how and when a decision for a patch release is made, but I learned from this discussions that it was expected by most people. If there is no guarantee in the future, this decreases dramatically my will to test and fix bugs after a .0 release in this branch. My contribution might not be high and in total insignificant though.
This is a valid concern. I can assure you that The Qt Company has nothing against patch releases. You can look back in history and see that we do make patch releases, sometimes quite many of them. But lately it has become harder and harder. Now we want to fix the fundamentals and get back to normal mode of operations with Qt 5.9, including making patch releases.
Yours,
            Tuukka

I can only repeat my personal opinion: Bug fixes first, then new features. If the time between two feature releases is too close, then increase the time or change to a release-when-its-ready timeline.
My 2 cts.

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