[Python-Dev] New functionality in micro releases (was: Documenting branch policy)

[Jack Jansen]

On 7-sep-03, at 21:15, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>> Maintenance branches are for bug fixes
>> <em>only</em>;
>
> This question is heavily debated. Alex Martelli, for example, favours
> a policy where new (in a strict sense) features are acceptable if they
> don't break anything, and are "minor", in some sense.

With Python 2.3 included in MacOSX 10.3 I would be heavily opposed to
this. I know, I've done it myself all the time in the past (with 
MacPython for
OS9), but with Python 2.3 we have the situation that the majority of
Python installations (I think it's safe to take the guess that MacOSX 
10.3
installations will soon outnumber all other Pythons together) will stay
at 2.3 until the next release of MacOSX.

This means that by adding even the slightest bit of functionality you
will make life difficult for developers: they themselves will probably
track Python releases, but their customers most likely won't. Note
that the MacPython infrastructure (bundlebuilder and such) really 
invites
people to distribute their applications to third parties. And judging
by the discussions on pythonmac-sig a lot of people are already doing 
this.

Even bug fixes already have an impact (because the developer won't see
a bug that will show up on the deployment machine), but adding 
functionality
would exacerbate the issue.
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman