[PD-dev] working towards Pd-0.40.3-extended

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Oct 27, 2007, at 3:28 AM, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> Hallo,
> Hans-Christoph Steiner hat gesagt: // Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
>> Now with Pd-0.39.3-extended finally out, I'd like to talk about
>> setting the timetable for the next Pd-extended release.
>
> Would this also be a time to talk about possible structural changes to
> address some problems of Pd-extended? One problem I see is that the
> releases are too old. pd-0.39 is from 2005. Of course one can try
> shorter release cycles, but people are only so fast, and we're facing
> a two-year delay here, not just a couble of weeks, so I believe, some
> "mechanisms" may need to change as well, not just policies.
>
> One thing that seems to hold back releases for years is the sheer size
> of Pd-extended. I brought this up in the past, but I believe,
> Pd-extended should be split into two packages, one including MSP-Pd,
> patched, and another for the actual extensions (externals,
> abstractions, docs, ...). I think, the build system already can do
> this, it's just the packaging that doesn't do that.

I should say that splitting things into packages could make sense for  
debian packages, but I'd set the pd-extended package to install the  
rest anyhow.  The debian packages are waiting to be improved, so if  
anyone has a grand plan, then can do it their way.

The thing that holds back Pd-extended is that very few people help to  
work on a proper release cycle, meaning make a release branch, do  
lots of testing, and fix the bugs.  With more help, this would go  
faster.  I just didn't want to release with showstopper bugs.  Sadly  
I had to, Gem on GNU/Linux new ATI cards is almost unusable, as Roman  
can attest.

Also, I don't switch to Miller's next version till he's done with the  
bugfix releases.  It's a lot of work to switch to new sources from  
Miller, and even more to try to track his changes.  Things like  
Miller's windows and macosx build systems being unpublished  
contribute to that, as well as other things.

.hc

>
> Ciao
> -- 
>  Frank Barknecht                                     _  
> ______footils.org__
>
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