[josm-dev] JOSM-Tested

[Russ Nelson]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason writes:
 > I think JOSM's release process is awesome. Projects like JOSM that do
 > monthly releases tend to constantly keep the code in what's basically
 > a ready-to-release state. I actually don't use the releases, I just
 > track trunk.

And how was trunk for you when undo didn't?

 > But the releases aren't just an arbitrary monthly snapshot. The devs
 > make an effort to close any remaining blocker bugs before a release,
 > but of course with everyone being a volunteer that doesn't always get
 > done optimally.

There's a lot of grunt work to be done in a release, and ... it's not
happening with JOSM.  I'm not volunteering, but I AM trying to point
out what is missing, since some people don't seem to understand why
translations don't just magically appear.

 > Of course there are some things that could be done better, like a
 > translation freeze a few days before release.

A few days?  That's optimistic.  A month is a minimum.  In my
experience.  Of course, Dirk thinks I have no experience, so that's
kinda wasted breath.

 > Small-ish projects like JOSM can actually become much worse for their
 > users if they do "proper" releases. I.e. something where there's a
 > maintenance branch that gets maintained in paralell, and things only
 > get merged there once they're sure to work. Doing stuff like that
 > takes a lot of manpower.

My point exactly.  It's hard to do releases.  Don't call what JOSM
does a "release".  JOSM does snapshots.

-- 
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