Re: Distributing unstable Windows binaries

[c.]

On 13 Jul 2014, at 15:10, Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Markus Bergholz and I were discussing putting up unstable Windows binaries 
> (3.9.0+ & 4.1.0+) on mxeoctave.osuv.de.
> Before proceeding I'd like to have the opinions of other Octave developers on 
> this.
> 
> My thoughts:
> 
> - Using mxe-octave I regularly build binary Windows installers anyway from 
> the gui-release and default branches (currently 3.9.0+ & 4.1.0+ combined into 
> one installer). Usually soon after a merge from stable -> gui-release -> 
> default.
> I use those binaries at work (always a good test), rather than stable Octave 
> versions.
> 
> - The unstable versions offer features (and fixes) not yet in stable that 
> (some/many) users might need. Until now Linux users had a bit of an advantage 
> here: even with mxe-octave the treshold for building unstable (Windows, or 
> OSX) Octave versions is still significantly higher than for Linux users.
> 
> - I could also distribute "unstable" OF package versions (in my case the io 
> package) this way.
> 
> - Some increase in bug reports / issues / support requests etc can be 
> expected. Is this a bad thing?
> 
> - User expectation needs attention. I was thinking of an Octave prompt along 
> the lines of:
> "Octave <version> development snapshot <date> - use at own risk!\n>>"
> ...plus maybe some additions to the readme.
> 
> 
> Currently my mxe-octave build tree is somewhat outdated and a bit messy as I 
> have many personal mods; so I think my current unstable Windows binaries are 
> less suited for distribution. But now that mxe-octave is more or less 
> feature-complete (i.e., Ghostscript has been added) I have a good reason to 
> upgrade :-)  and it's easier for me to supply the mxe changes to comply with 
> the GPL.
> 
> Thought, opinions?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Philip
> 

I think the main issue with distributing unstable binaries is that they are, 
well ... unstable ;)
It's true that the more people use the pre-release version the more (possibly 
useful) bug reports
can be produced, but if new binaries are not produced often, these reports are 
probably going to be
about the same bugs which are not being fixed over and over again.
Maybe if someone could find a way to automate production of nightly snapshot 
builds that would change,
but then we might sometimes get nightly builds that fail or introduce new bugs.

just my .2€

c.