On Saturday, 2012-04-07, dE . wrote: > On 04/05/12 13:57, Kevin Krammer wrote: > > On Thursday, 2012-04-05, Duncan wrote: > >> dE . posted on Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:23:16 +0530 as excerpted: > >>> So 'feature release' may mean (apart form including absolutely new > >>> features) - > >>> > >>> 1) Restructuring the code (better management). > >>> 2) New backend or changed backend which may increase or decrease bugs. > >>> > >>> And bug fixes mean fixing small time bugs in library or directly in the > >>> app. > >> > >> I'll let Kevin respond to that (tho it seems a reasonable summary to > >> this non-dev, here), > > > > I agree. My guess is that the term "feature release" is used to indicate > > that this is not just the same thing again. > > > > From a developer's perspective it just means that restrictions on what > > you can > > > > do are less tight. There are still things that are not allowed, e.g. > > changing libraries in a way that makes them incompatible with > > applications, but on the application level you can do almost anything > > you want. > > > >> but there is certainly one practical limitation of the > >> bugfix releases as opposed to feature releases: > >> > >> * Strings are generally frozen during a six-month bugfix series. This > >> is to help the various l10n (localization, basically, translation) > >> efforts, but it DOES mean a tradeoff in terms of fixing things > >> "properly" sometimes, if that would mean a UI and string change, even > >> if the actual code fix is reasonably small and "safe" and would > >> otherwise be allowed. > > > > Yes, very good observation. Sometimes an essential bug fix needs a string > > change, in which case the translators usually grant an exception [1]. > > > >> This is actually one reason the distros tend to ship later bugfix > >> releases instead of newer feature releases > > > > One additional thing might be that distributions themselves use a very > > similar development and release model so they have a better > > understanding what each step along the way carries with it. > > > > Early bug fix releases of a feature release are basically more like the > > public beta of proprietary software, i.e. the beta releases of Free > > Software products (and of distributions which do such things) are more > > like the interal or private beta. > > 'Early bug fix' release? I thought that bug fix releases were the minor > versions like 4.8.1, or 4.8.2 etc... Yes. What I wanted to say was early as in x.y.1 and x.y.2 as opposed to late as in x.y.5 Cheers, Kevin -- Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer KDE user support, developer mentoring
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