[boost] [Release Process] composing the release

From: Frank Birbacher (bloodymir.crap_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-09-07 18:03:58

Hi!

In this message I'm grounding my questions on the release process which
we discussed ealier: development in the trunk and a release manager who
will merge the changes into a release branch.

When the libraries develop over time and some new features become
release-ready they should me merged into the release branch. Now what
happenes/should happen when a library X and a library Y both depend on
library BASE and X includes a new feature which depends on a new version
of BASE but library Y is using the old version of BASE? What should
become of the release? Would the new features of X be rejected for
release? Would we require lib Y to test against the new BASE?

Proposal:
For important/widely used "base" libraries we would use the
release-ready version of the previous release. Meaning: at the same time
when doing a release the lib BASE has some release-ready state (which is
not necessarily part of the release). This state shall be "fixed" for
use by other libraries when preparing for the *next* release. The BASE
lib would be "one release behind", but every other library would have a
common base to work with.

Is this sensible?

Frank