[Scilab-users] [Scilab-Dev] Scilab release frequency ?

[Claus Futtrup]

Hi,

My thoughts on releases. I agree that releases have been incredibly 
slow, but haven't spent time bickering about it. Instead, I'm pleased 
when releases are finally here. I've wondered about the organization(s) 
behind Scilab. It seems we get a new release every time Scilab is 
reorganized in some way ... and that there's lots of political stuff 
going on.

I hope that the Scilab 6 milestone means that Scilab (as in the software 
itself) is organized in a way suitable for the next many years. Hereby I 
imply that any 6.X release only has to reflect incremental (and 
preferably backwards compatible) improvements.

Personally I consider "nightly builds" to be bleeding edge, for 
developers, and not something I can use for my development - just as I 
cannot distribute Scilab code and reference a nightly-build version of 
Scilab to whoever might be interested.

 >each publication needs or deserves some specific tasks that take time

Yes, typically minimized by writing a developer-oriented "how-to" 
release (aka to-do list).

IMHO regarding release frequency, the second-most important reason to 
release is so that the project appears alive and not dead.

Best regards,
Claus

On 10-04-2017 13:58, Samuel Gougeon wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am redirecting this discussion on users@ because it shall mainly 
> interest most of users,  while, after 2 weeks, palpably not developers:
>
> http://mailinglists.scilab.org/Scilab-release-frequency-tt4035908.html
>
> On 21/03/2017 à 15:18, Clément David wrote on dev@:
>> After some private discussion by direct mail, Samuel pointed that I have to open the discussion to ask for your needs / advises for the release frequency ; thanks Samuel for that. Please find also attached a Scilab version timeline for reference.
>>
>> To clarify the discussion, I will use the convention major.minor.revision (6.0.0 == 6 major, 0 minor, 0 revision) where :
>>   * a revision only contains bug fixes and should be script compatible but might deprecate functions
>>   * a minor version remove deprecated functions
>>   * a major version is a Scilab partial rewrite
>>
>> IMHO an expected (with no strict application) period should be :
>>   * 6-9 months “revision” cycle
>>   * 18-24 months “minor” cycle (2 to 3 revisions)
>>   * much more for a “major”
>>
>> Do you have an opinion on the Scilab release period ? Which period will simplify your developments ?
>
> In private, Clément's rationale is, mainly and AFAIU, that preparing 
> the publication of each release takes some time: There is a list of 
> things to do, like formating the release notes, publishing new online 
> help pages, updating download pages in several languages, etc. Then, 
> this time is not used for developments.
>
> I was asking about the intentions of the Scilab team about the future 
> release frequency, because i thought -- and still think -- that 
> roughtly 2 years between 2 consecutive minor releases is incredibly 
> long at the usual Information Technologies timescale.
> Keeping such a slow rate would mean that we would have to wait up to 2 
> years between the inclusion of a new feature in Scilab, and its 
> distribution in an official Scilab release! So to wait even longer 
> between the implementation of any new feature, and its actual 
> availability in Scilab. Even for the "smallest" features, as soon as 
> they are new.
>
> Obviously, we can't ignore that each publication needs or deserves 
> some specific tasks that take time, and that this time should be 
> minimized.
> Moreover, we may note that contrarily to many free and open softwares, 
> nighly built releases are available online for Scilab, mostly at every 
> moment. From time to time, there are some short dead periods in these 
> daily releases in which the most recently included features are 
> available. These binary releases can be installed and used out of the 
> box like every "official" release, without uninstalling the current 
> "official" release from our computer. Actually, installing a new 
> Scilab version never requires uninstalling other (even multiple) 
> versions of Scilab on the same computer. Everyone can have as many 
> Scilab versions installed on the same computer as wished, whitout any 
> problem. It takes less than 5 mn to install a new Scilab. And add some 
> additional 5-15 mn to reset our Preferences, install few ATOMS modules 
> for it, etc.
> This is very great and useful and safe.
>
> So, after our last email, i came to the following conclusion: In my 
> opinion, publishing revision 6.n.X releases is useless. For the 
> future, we could expect
>
>   * The publication only of official minor versions: 6.X
>     This should allow publishing them at a faster rate, at least once
>     per year, never less.
>
>   * Keeping Nightly built (daily) releases for the current 6.X+
>     branch, in which bugs are fixed "on-the-fly", the documentation is
>     improved, and all other safe daily modifications are included and
>     available on download the day after.
>
>   * Keeping Nightly built (daily) releases of the master preparing the
>     6.(X+1) release, in which new features or modifications that could
>     make Scilab unstable are progressively included.
>
> Hence, the publication process would take less time ; new features 
> would become available in the year instead of in a 2-year period ; and 
> Scilab's safety will be unchanged.
>
> Hope reading other contributions and thoughts,
>
> Best regards
> Samuel
>
>
>
>
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