Re: address@hidden: Re: Possible help with stable Emacs releases.]

[Jérôme Marant]

Quoting Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>:

> >> Actually, we already have "the RC branch" from which 21.2 and 21.3 came.
> >> So I agree to the extent that "Debian patches" should be applied to the RC
> >> branch of Emacs rather than just to the Debian Emacs package (assuming the
> >> fixes are sufficiently clean, of course).
>
> > It is much easier to create a new branch for every stable release: you
> > can then avoid the pain of CVS merges for the same cost (I'm not
> > inventing anything, GCC people do this).
>
> OK, it seems we're mis-communicating because I assume you know things you
> don't.  "The" RC branch is the branch that's created when a new major
> release is made.  I.e. when 21.1 was released, a new branch was created
> (EMACS_21_1_RC).  From this branch were cut the bugfix releases 21.2 and
> 21.3.  When 21.4 will be release a new RC branch will be created.

I knew about this branch but I've been confused by 21.2 and 21.3 being
bugfix releases. This is why we do propose a different versioning scheme
for such releases.

> I.e. right now there's a single RC branch for the simple reason that there's
> only been a single major release since we switched to CVS.  But there will
> be more (but obviously at any point in time only one RC branch is active,
> because we don't have the manpower to continue releasing bugfix releases of
> several major versions).
>
> I.e. what you're suggesting is "what we already do" except that you're
> proposing to be more actively involved in maintaining the RC branch (and you
> suggest we call the revisions 21.1.N rather than 21.2, 21.3, ...).  I think
> that any separately maintained set of patches is a waste of resouces, so of
> course I'd welcome it if Debian put their patches directly in the RC branch
> rather.

This is exactly what we offer to do.

Cheers,

--
Jérôme Marant