Norman, All,
The nightly build source tarballs are needed for RPMS, they are just
what RPM uses. It is also the "normal" way of distributing source for
open source projects, plus you do not have to bootstrap them,
bootstrapping them will probably be unfamiliar to most people.
I am going to check the source tarballs on each platform we build on,
but first I am trying to get them in a working state on one platform.
The concept of a release is a bit fuzzier now. Now we can update
libraries and the release with individual package RPMS etc on a
continual basis. We are not restricted by having static libraries.
The only thing you developers have to keep in mind is that you have to
tell me when you would like to release a new version of a package, only
you lot know that.
As far as distributing the nightly builds goes, we may as well make them
available. The only reason that I set them up was to have a continual
check done on the CVS software. I think we would be even more behind
schedule if they did not exist. Making the results of the available is
just a natural consequence of having them and is little or no more
effort for me. In fact it saves me a lot of time and effort and when I
come to make a release I know the software will build, which was one of
the main slowdowns for releases in the past! Ok, this time we have an
additional problem that now we haven't got a binary release mechanism,
but once that is in place then future releases should be much simpler,
assuming there is a future.
Yes the "stable" release source and built versions will be advertised on
the main Starlink site as normal. Do you consider everything in CVS OK?
Steve.
-----Original Message-----
From: Starlink development [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Norman Gray
Sent: 22 April 2005 17:47
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Advertised location for source distributions
Steve,
On 2005 Apr 22 , at 15.42, Rankin, SE (Stephen) wrote:
> Next week you can point them to the AST tar.gz file from the nightly
> build, but I have not checked it yet so currently it may or may not
> work. I will let you know.
Since these source distributions are supposed to be platform
independent, it might be worth checking (occasionally, by hand) that
they are rigourously identical. In which case any one of the
nightly-build tarballs would do (I wasn't sure if you were implying
that).
Separately, however, we should advertise stable locations for release
versions of the various packages, on www.starlink.ac.uk rather than the
dev.starlink.ac.uk site. That way, when a new point release appears it
can be distributed there, rather than letting folk pick up a
nightly-build.
Having said that, for software I've downloaded, I've never considered
picking up a nightly build tarball -- I've always stick to release
versions. Nightly build tarballs are good PR, and are important for
that reason, but I can't actually think of anyone who'd want a
nightly-build tarball who wouldn't be happier with a CVS checkout. In
other words, I'm not sure it's worth investing any great effort in
distributing the nightly-builds, but we are possibly a bit overdue in
distributing release versions. Not that I'm suggesting that's
trivial....
See you,
Norman
--
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Norman Gray : Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow University, UK
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/ : www.starlink.ac.uk
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