[Fwd: Wine-Wiki.org]

[tony_lambregts at telusplanet.net]

Francois Gouget wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Tony Lambregts wrote:
> 
>> Francois Gouget wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 tony_lambregts at telusplanet.net wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> As far as things go until we go to a "Stable release" system then we 
>>>> will always have this problem.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That the problem: a "Stable Wine release" has been six months away 
>>> since 1998 and even before. But we still don't have one, have no idea 
>>> when there will be one and thus we should not do stuff that will only 
>>> makes sense once we will have a stable release and are just confusing 
>>> and meaningless until then.
>>>
>> Thats BS. (pardon me) :^) That is circular reasoning. What I am 
>> hearing is we shouldn't define the criteria for "stable" because we 
>> aren't stable. We could go "stable" today if we wanted and this is how:
> 
> 
> I'm not saying we cannot define the criteria, I'm saying it does not 
> make sense to work and make promises today that will only make sense 
> when we have stable releases which could be years away (if following 
> historical trends).
> 
> And no, we cannot make 'stable' releases today. Some of the criteria for 
> 0.9 are: completing the window management rewrite, good enough dll 
> separation and stabilizing the wineserver protocol. We're close on some 
> of these goals but there's still work. And as far as I know there won't 
> be stable releases before we reach 0.9.
> 
That's again circular. One of the things that need to be in place for 0.9 is a 
stable release cycle.

I would like to ask for the following baby step instead: Alexandre gives a 
"heads up notice" couple of days before he actualy releases.

This would give maintainers a last a chance to find regressions before we 
release. No promises no gaurantees. just a small change in the way we do things.

I talked to Alexandre on ICR and in the end he said: "Prove to me that we can do 
meaningful regression testing and then we'll see about improving the sheduling"

So it's not just you. :(

I could cry.

Which of these more resonable entry for the "Maintainers Guide"?
...
Testing:

Since we do not have a stable release cycle Maintainers should compile from CVS 
and test as often as possible, at least every week. If you find a regression 
please try to identify the patch through regression testing. Once you have found 
the patch please report it on wine-devel at winehq.org. hopefully the developer 
that created the patch (or someone else) will come forward and propose a fix. 
There is no gaurantee that anyone will help you fix the regression but they 
usually do.

Snapshots released roughly once a month but there is no way to know for sure 
when a snapshot will be released. Early detection of regressions increase the 
chance of fixing them, so please test often.
...
or this.
...
Testing:

Since we do not have a stable release cycle Maintainers should compile from CVS 
and test as often as possible, at least every week. If you find a regression 
please try to identify the patch through regression testing. Once you have found 
the patch please report it on wine-devel at winehq.org. hopefully the developer 
that created the patch (or someone else) will come forward and propose a fix. 
There is no gaurantee that anyone will help you fix the regression but they 
usually do.

Snapshots are released roughly once a month but Alexandre will announce that we 
will be releasing a snapshot in a couple of days. This is the last chance for us 
to find regressions before a release. We really do not want to be flooding the 
mailing list with regressions from weeks past at this point. Early detection of 
regressions increase the chance of fixing them, so please test often.
...

> 
> [...]
> 
>>> Maybe this is how it will work, maybe not. It would be a big change 
>>> from the way things work right now and nobody knows when this is 
>>> going to happen so it's presumptuous to make predictions.
>>
>>
>> How's that? The way it works now is that if someone reports on Wine 
>> Devel that patch X breaks their application the developer of the patch 
>> usually will step up with a fix, often it is the same day. I cannot 
>> see how this is in any way presumptuous. It simply flows from the way 
>> we work today.
> 
> 
> I can tell you that there are a lot of regressions that slip through and 
> are only detected much later and that give us (CodeWeavers) quite a lot 
> of work before doing a release. Hopefully the situation will be much 
> better once cxtest is in 'full production' and Wine has more maintainers.
> 
Yes. But that is true of any software. Right now there wine has no quality 
assurance. Hopefully with more maintainers we can get there but just having more 
maintainer by itself is not enough.

[snip]

> 
>> If copying DLL's is OK for you why not Copying programs.
> 
> 
> Because copying programs usually require copying parts of the Windows 
> registry which I think is just way too complex for a regular user.
> 
Not all applications require the registry. I know of a couple that work fine 
that way.

> Usually copying a dll doesn't require anything more than copying a file, 
> sometimes not even that as the dll may have already been installed by 
> the application and all you need is to tell Wine to use it instead of 
> the builtin.
>
I can see this if it comes with the application but if I don't have a licence 
for windows (or the right version of windows) I cannot do this.

You want Gold to be more inclusive and I want it to be exclusive. Anyone should 
be able to run a "gold" (regardless of their windows licence). I can sympatize 
with wanting more apps to be gold but fudging things to get there is not the way.

[Snip]

--

Tony Lambregts