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

[Jason H]

> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 7:39 AM
> From: "Torben Dannhauer" <torben at dannhauer.info>
> To: releasing at qt-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Releasing] [Development] Focusing bug fixes to 5.9 branch and patch releases during H1/17
>
> 
> Zitat von Roland Winklmeier <roland.m.winklmeier at gmail.com>:
> 
> > 2017-02-15 12:52 GMT+01:00 Shawn Rutledge <Shawn.Rutledge at qt.io>:
> >
> >>
> >> > 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…
> >>
> >
> > Speaking for myself, I also think, skipping 5.8.1 is a mistake. We just
> > upgraded our project from 5.6 to 5.8 and realized that it had several
> > regressions. For example we are using a QNetworkAccessManager and for
> > random reasons it always switches to NotAccessible after some minutes. No
> > recovery possible except restarting the application. I wonder why nobody
> > else got affected by this. I _think_ the cause was QTBUG-51543, even though
> > I never finally understood whats going on. In any case, the fix for this
> > bug went into 5.8.1, which now won't get released. For me this is very
> > frustrating, since we counted our next milestone on an early 5.8.1 release.
> > Now I would have to wait for 5.9.0 which is planned end of May if
> > everything goes smooth. Even then, there is no guarantee that there is no
> > new regression which would require 5.9.1 release.
> > I also can't produce custom builds, since I never managed to create a
> > custom offline installer for my team members (we are are non profil OSS
> > group without many infrastructure and resources). I do regular builds of Qt
> > itself, but the rest is out of my capabilities.
> >
> > In summary, for me it is very unfortunate that I have to delay our
> > milestone minimum until June if everything goes well.
> 
> 
> +1
> 
> I think, for many quality focused software projects, skipping patch  
> releases in Qt is a pain.
> 
> I would even go further: I recommend to establish guidelines how many  
> patch releases should be published (I think at minimum 1, better 2). I  
> would give them absolute priority over new minor (or even major)  
> releases. If there are shortages in CI , CPU or Disk power, whis  
> should primary affeect new releases, not patch releases.
> This would
> a) support Qt not bo become one of the thousand feature rich but  
> unstable and buggy software frameworks/projects
> b) taking pressure on fixing this basic shortages
> 
> If I had to decide between new features and bugfixed/mature code - I  
> would go for mature code.

I also disagree with the release plan. I cannot use 5.6 anymore because I have coded against QtQuick Controls 2 of 5.7. There are issues with 5.7.1, not fixed in 5.8, and you're telling me that I have to either re-write my code to not use Quick Controls 2 do I can get the patch in 5.6.3, or wait until 5.9!? That's just unacceptable. 

I need a 5.7.2 or a 5.8.1