Re: [ros-dev] The situation with version 0.4.14

[Hermès BÉLUSCA-MAÏTO]

I would like to just release the 0.4.14, as we already have a ton of release candidates of
it on Sourceforge, so that we are done with it now, and then branch 0.4.15 and do the
usual regression testing from there.

Regards,
Hermes

-----Original Message-----
From: Ros-dev <ros-dev-bounces(a)reactos.org> On Behalf Of Victor Perevertkin
Sent: 9. veljače 2021. 16:47
To: ReactOS Development List <ros-dev(a)reactos.org>
Subject: [ros-dev] The situation with version 0.4.14

Hello!

It seems for me that it's time to bring up the topic about our RC version - 0.4.14.

Our current "stable", 0.4.13 was branched on 30 September, 2019 (remember those
peacefull pre-COVID times :D) That's quite some time, but not the main issue I'd
like to discuss.

0.4.14 was branched on 24 April, 2020. That's almost a year already.
And we're in a difficult situation here - there are regressions, but nobody fixed them
within this long time.
According to https://reactos.org/wiki/Tests_for_0.4.14, there are 29 unfixed regressions
found for this release. I'd like to point out: most of them are among usermode and
non-kernel/driver functionality, and as our development is mostly focused in the kernel
right now, it's unexpected for them to be fixed unless a volunteer comes up.

A quick reminder. Our "releases" mechanism is useful for finding regressions in
the first place, there is no that much benefit for users here, because we're still a
"deep" alpha. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Joakim made a great job finding all regressions, and this work won't be lost in any
case.

We can't wait forever and I think it's time to resolve this situation somehow. I
see two options:
1. Release 0.4.14 as-is. There were a lot more buggy releases, nobody dies from this.
2. Skip 0.4.14. This already happened once in the history of the project - 0.3.2 was
skipped. I wasn't around at the time, but I may guess that reasons were similar to
what we have today.
(3.) Fix the bugs quickly. I don't expect this to happen, but who knows, maybe a
volunteer appears :)

Let's vote. This seem to be the only way for us to decide on things.
Votes from the team members will be collected until 1 March.

===

I personally vote for skipping the release. The work on finding regressions is already
done, so the most important part of a release cycle for us is there (thanks Joakim!) If we
do a release now, all the stuff we were writing in news reports for the last 6 month would
be missing from it. That would cause (as I
think) a lot of confusion to people. Moreover 0.4.14 is not that featureful release itself
(compared to 0.4.13, which brought the new USB stack) So I suggest to move on and start
checking 0.4.15 for regressions. I expect quite some of them to appear and we need time
for fixing.


Cheers,
Victor