[Bioperl-l] Status update on BioPerl

[Fields, Christopher J]

Hi all,

A few updates on things.  Of particular, note item #5: anyone wanting to use BioPerl as is, please use the 'v1.6.x' branch code.

1) All bug fixes from master that don't involve migration of code out of core have been merged and tested in the 'v1.6.x' branch (see below regarding this branch name) and will be released as v1.6.910 to CPAN sometime this week or next (barring any problems with $job).  So far all tests pass via Travis-CI, including remote database tests.

2) Based on the initial CPAN Tester results I may do additional followup releases to fix minor issues.

3) Beyond any minor fixes to address problems mentioned in #2, **this will be the last of the 1.6.x release series**.

4) I have added a new README.md (markdown-based) to the master branch.  Feel free to edit as needed, but please relegate any changes to the master branch for now.

5) The next release series will be v1.7.x and will focus on demodularization (see below).  As the 'v1' branch doesn't indicate the specific minor version is supports, I have renamed the 'v1' branch to 'v1.6.x'.  Anyone reliant on stable code should only use this branch or the latest CPAN release.  This should be considered the stable branch name and won't change in the future, barring any dissension.

6) Any git branches that have been merged back into master have been deleted (any that had additional commits past the point of the merge should still be intact).

7) At some point when the dust settles a bit we will move from the Redmine bug tracker to Github Issues.  This may require some manual migration of tickets, though I don't anticipate it will be terribly difficult (the REST API for Redmine and Github are quite nice).

Based on past conversations on the list and elsewhere, the v1.7.x release series will focus primarily on pushing as much non-core code as possible into separate independent distributions.  I anticipate an initial 1.7.x release possibly mid-fall (Sept-Oct).  I'm not going to go into a lot of details (a lot has been discussed on this in the past), but I expect the process will encompass a number of iterative 1.7.x releases and may very well break installations relying on the master branch.  So, final reminder: use the v1.6.x branch if you need stability for now.

Any feedback/help is more than welcome!

chris