[Bioperl-l] How to handle bugs in bioperl 1.4 on CPAN?

[Chris Fields]

> | 1)  Commits should be made to stable releases (as well as to the main
> branch
> | in CVS) to fix bugs as long as that release is supported.  I agree with
> | this, but someone has to volunteer, and the length of time a release is
> | supported also worked out.
> 
> I volunteer to do that (merge approved changes/fixes back to
> a stable branch), though as said by others, 1.4 may not be
> the most appropriate 'stable' branch, as too many changes
> have accumulated, and maybe it's not worth it. But I could
> do that for the next 'stable' release, 1.6 or 2.0 whichever
> comes next.
> 
> As per the length of time, I would say that a stable release
> should be supported at least until another 'stable' release
> is made. Or until it's no longer being used in production
> setups, which is only feasible to know in small
> communities.

I'm posting this to the mail list so that others can respond.

Kevin Brown (in a response to me) made some good points about updating and
maintaining stable releases in that only bug fixes are committed (i.e. no
refactoring, no new modules or features).  I personally wouldn't have a
problem in someone doing this, releasing periodic updates to stable or
developer releases to fix bugs only but I may be in the minority here.  The
rest of the core guys and others need to also speak their thoughts.  I hate
forwarding this to Jason since he's in the middle of getting ready for a
move but I think this is important enough to do so.

I can say that I am unequivocally against updating 1.4.  Too much has
changed since then and I think it would be a mess trying to figure out what
bug fixes to include, etc.  

I also am very much against placing developer's releases in CPAN; those
releases are not intended to be completely stable as they may be
implementing new features that haven't been tested completely and may
contain various other bugs.  v 1.5.1 is remarkably stable for a developer's
release but several bug fixes have been made since.  If someone wants to try
out the developer's versions or bioperl-live they are most welcome to it;
the web site docs give all the instructions one needs to install from pretty
much any platform.

Beyond that, I'm spent on this thread.

Chris