Re: release management

[Adam Spiers <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ollivier Robert (roberto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> I think the best idea is to use the anonymous CVS server from Tanaka-san
> (do I have the order right here ?). That's what I'm doing...

It's not a bad idea, but there are two problems:

  1. Tanaka's machine is in Japan, which is quite a long way away from
     most of us.

  2. It would effectively place Tanaka under the burden of being the
     current patch pumpking, which he may not want.

[ Warning: the following is tedious and contains no patches.  But it
  is /not/ in any way a rant, so apologies if it comes across as one! ]

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the key developers amongst us
don't feel an urgent need for some central CVS (or other)
repository[0].  This is presumably because after years of hacking
they're genuine gurus when it comes to applying patches of all
different shapes, sizes and ages to zsh.  Alas, some of us (well, me
at least) are not so expert, and personally even with the
semi-automatic patch applying procedure I've created, I'm finding that
trying to keep up to date is taking so much of the time I allocate for
zsh hacking, that in the last few weeks[1] I've been unable to do
anything useful on it[2]...  which kind of defeats the point of
tracking development in the first place.

As a result, I can't realistically continue contributing in my small
way until there is a CVS facility which is declared the authoritative
line of development.  This is certainly no great disaster for zsh, but
it's a shame for me, and there may be others out there with more
worthwhile things to contribute who are hampered in doing so through
the same problem.  So, at this point I get down on my knees and beg:
please can we set up CVS very very soon?!  (Or of course just declare
Tanaka's as authoritative.)  As I think I mentioned before, if no-one
else wants to do it, just say the word and I'll immediately set it up
myself on a reliable RedHat box[3], with write-access for whoever
volunteers as coordinator.  I could even set up a commit mechanism so
that commits from anonymous read-only users would not get committed
but instead forwarded to this list for approval, or similar.

The longer this issue gets left, the more everyone's ideas of what the
current snapshot looks like will diverge, so let's get moving!  And
besides, I have some tasteless prompt colours which urgently need
taming ;-)

Adam


[0] Just a guess based on the fact that despite several discussions on
    the topic, nothing has appeared yet.
[1] It's become harder since the regular intermediate releases stopped.
[2] Ignoring for a moment whether I'm ever able to produce anything
    useful :-)
[3] in the UK, with good bandwidth and plenty of spare resources