[Python-Dev] Regular scheduled releases (was: Continuing 2.x)

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 7:39 AM, Dirkjan Ochtman <dirkjan at ochtman.nl> wrote:
> That's an average of 4 (if you include .4) or 4.5 months (PEP 6
> specifies 6 months, but some of the parts seem outdated). I think
> releasing each month might be a bit ambitious, but it would be great
> to drive down the release interval towards 2-3 months instead of 4-5.

Ultimately, the frequency of releases comes down to the burden on the
release manager and the folks that build the binary installers. Any
given RM is usually only responsible for one or two branches, but the
same two people (Martin and Ronald) typically build the Windows and
Mac OS X binaries for all of them. So if you add 2.6 and 3.1 together,
as well as the releases for 2.7 and 3.2 development, I think you'll
find releases happening a lot more often than an average of 1 every 4
months.

I suspect the most significant thing that needs to be done in making
more regular bug fix releases possible is solid, reliable automated
creation of Windows and Mac OS X binaries. We also need to consider
the impact on downstream - switching to a new compiler or interpreter
version generally has a much higher chance of breaking things than
switching to a new version of almost any other software development
tool.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia