[asterisk-dev] Release Candidates and Nightly Builds

[Daniel Hazelbaker]

On Jan 18, 2008, at 5:30 PM, Russell Bryant wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I apologize for not being able to participate in the various  
> discussions
> regarding release policies that have happened over the past week.   
> However, I
> would like to offer these thoughts in response to what has been  
> talked about.
>
> == Release Candidates

I think that will help the stability of 1.4 quite a bit.  As we have  
seen with the slow adoption of 1.4 over 1.2 we can probably expect  
people to take quite awhile to move from 1.4 to 1.6, so bringing some  
extra stability here will be very much appreciated by many I am sure.

> == Nightly Builds
>
> This issue has a lot more controversy than release candidates.  As a  
> developer,
> I realize that technically, they provide no more access to the code  
> than you
> already have with svn.  However, I am also willing to compromise and  
> consider
> releasing code in other ways if it means that more people will  
> actually use it.
>  It's probably a psychological thing, but it doesn't really matter.   
> If making
> nightly builds means more people will test the code, then I am all  
> for it.

I would agree that it is, for the most part, more psychological than  
anything else, but I am sure there are a number of people that version  
control in general just doesn't click with them.  I know it took  
awhile for it to click with me.  Anything that doesn't click we  
naturally shy away from.

I do like this proposal of, from digium's side, nightly tarballing the  
1.4 (and eventually 1.6) code for "release".  As a side, and somewhat  
related question, for those of us interested in a binary distribution  
I have a question about Zaptel and Addons integration.  And I think it  
is easiest to explain with an example.

In my test machine I download the latest release Zaptel and build &  
install it.
I grab the latest "nightly build" of Asterisk and build & install it.
I grab the latest release Addons and build & install it (I use mysql a  
lot in this instance).
(1) A week later I grab the new nightly of Asterisk and build &  
install it.
(2) Another week later I grab the new release of Zaptel and build &  
install it.

I realize occasionally stuff gets changed that causes an API  
incompatibility, but all other things being generally equal; will #1  
cause a problem with the Addons such that I would have to rebuild them  
as well, and same for #2 (would I have to rebuild both Asterisk and  
Addons)?

In the past I have always just rebuilt both, but I don't want to make  
an assumption by a single quick test that just happens to work. If  
they are, generally, independent of the specific build that would make  
it much easier for people to run nightlies as well as for people to  
make binary versions for others to download.

> Russell Bryant
> Senior Software Engineer
> Open Source Team Lead
> Digium, Inc.

Daniel