Re: Move to a cadence release model?

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Xue Fuqiao <address@hidden> writes:

> I think what John had in mind was to make Emacs release earlier and more
> frequently (i.e., be time-based instead of feature-based), thus creating a
> tight feedback loop between developers and users and eliminating the risk of
> creating a new release that no one will use. This means that users will see
> smaller changes more frequently.

I would indeed like to see several .x releases within a cycle, fairly evenly
spaced. x.y releases would wait until we have a larger set of features ready.

Doing this properly may mean dividing how we develop Emacs, though, with
active development on both the "current release branch (25.x)", and the "next
major release (26.1)". Merges would proceed daily from the former to the
latter, but rarely in the other direction (and only by cherry-picking).

We want an active focus on bugs -- toward a stabler .x -- but we don't want to
inhibit integration of feature branches toward the next x.y as they become
ready.

What we're doing now is working, so this isn't a change I propose making right
now. While we work on getting 25.1 out the door, we can keep thinking about
our development and release model.

John