Re: [boost] 1.58.1 bugfix release necessary?

Subject: Re: [boost] 1.58.1 bugfix release necessary?
From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-04-27 05:09:57

On Monday 27 April 2015 07:18:39 Tim Blechmann wrote:
> >>> What is would be the difference between creating a bug fix release
> >>> presumably
> >>> called 1.58.1 and just expediting release 1.59 ?
> >> 
> >> From a Linux user's perspective: A 1.58 would never ship with one of the
> >> common Linux distributions, if a 1.58.1 were available. But it might, if
> >> a
> >> 1.58 would not exist.
> > 
> > Hmmm - if 1.59 were available - would 1.58 ship?
> 
> ubuntu 15.04 was released this month and provides boost 1.55.
> 
> if 1.59 is released (or packaged) after the 'feature freeze', it will
> not be allowed to go in. if 1.58 is packaged and 1.58.1 is released
> after the 'feature freeze', it will go in as bugfix.

That is actually up to the distro maintainers to decide. It is typical that no 
new releases of software are allowed into the frozen distro release unless 
there is a serious problem, and the fix cannot be easily backported to the 
selected upstream release. In binary distros it is not uncommon to have a 
number of patches over the official upstream release of the software in order 
to fix bugs and adjust to the distro environment. So Boost 1.55 in Ubuntu is 
most certainly not the 1.55 we released and the same will be with any other 
release we ship.

I think the best we can do to fix 1.58 with our current workflow is to publish 
patches that fix known problems in the 1.58 release notes. That way it will be 
easier for the distro maintainers to find essential fixes. This did help in 
the past with Ubuntu, at least.