[PD-dev] re: branch convergence

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
guenter geiger hat gesagt: // guenter geiger wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, Matju wrote:
> > Btw, if I'm supposed to keep a few dozen .diff files around for submission
> > and also the .diff's of other people to check for potential conflicts, how
> > is CVS supposed to be useful to us at all?
> 
> The same, probably it doesn't work. I would be more than happy to drop
> all this patches stuff and go over to a more open development model,
> where people can change the Pd code directly, but it is not up to me
> to decide this.

I think, patches should be done to specific versions. When 0.38 is
stable, patches should be done only against the latest released 0.38
version. The goal of patches is to make it easier to get them into
main Pd. Really experimental stuff doesn't need to have a patch
against stable, I think. Of course, a patch would be nice, but it's
not so urgent. Bugfixes need a patch. However before some new features
are submitted to inclusion into main Pd, there must be a patch, IMO.

It will make it easier for everyone in the end, not only for Miller as
maintainer of Pd stable. For example: I might need to run a stable Pd
for performing, but I'd like to use the ALSA sequencer support. I can
apply this patch on my own and I don't need to run devel_XX, which can
be unstable, and I don't need to run Miller's test versions, which
also normally have more bugs in it, than the last released version.  I
only apply the aseq patch and only risk bugs there. The same applies
to packagers. ALSA sequencer support is very, very useful for e.g.
A/Demudi, so they can (Guenther did) include it in the package. 

That, IMO, is the main advantage of having a patch tracker. And other
projects work like this, too, for example the Linux kernel. Without a
patch, nothing gets into the kernel. OTOH distributions like Suse
supply heavily patched kernel versions, even Debian delivers some
patches for kernels, which add support for hardware etc.

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__