[Bf-committers] RFC: "Continuous integration" branch?

[Campbell Barton]

On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 12:57 AM, David Fenner <d4vidfenner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Truth be told, release candidates aren't very well tested anyway. It's when
> a true release comes when true testing begins. I say it as an artist myself.
>
> My personal opinion on this matter is a little more unorthodox, I think
> there simple shouldn't be a "Bcon" and releases every 3 months. I'm very
> serious. This only makes blender development too sparse and out of focus on
> the important things. Releases should come when the goals are met, period.
> Just like Krita does. The big discussion should be about what will this
> goals be, will it be despgraph refactor, hair sim, cloth speed, and some
> other things. If these things are unfinished, then "in the middle"
> releseases just get developers out of focus. Nobody wants a half made tool
> that rushes into a release, or development time wasted in a release that
> doesn't have the tool at all. What is the point of fixing so many bugs when
> there are 20 half baked projects in the way that will come with a ton of
> bugs very soon anyway? Why not make really important releases?  We don't
> care if we wait for eight months for a real release. Then I'd be truly
> interested in testing release candidates, but honestly, if nobody tests
> them right now, is for a reason, and this is "why should I test it if
> another one will come in a very short time anyway? " We can talk about
> community morals here, about being really active and not only ripping of
> the benefits and bla bla bla but in truth, really effective things occur
> when we see things like they really are, not based on ideals.
>
> The fact that this discussion even started shows that something needs to be
> done here, and instead of making separate branches, that as sergey said,
> most people will stick to the development one, I propose simple extending
> the release cycle indefinetely, until clear, big and small goals are met,
> with a cap of course, lets say nine months or a year.

Blender used to do releases much less frequently (release when its
ready) as you described and it didn't work well for us.

Also the comment "nobody tests them right now" isn't true, we get bug
reports specifically from users testing RC's in our tracker.