Release 4.0 after 3.6?

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Fri, 2011-01-28 at 09:04 +0100, Michael Adam wrote:
> Volker Lendecke wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 05:27:08PM +1000, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2011-01-28 at 07:48 +0100, Volker Lendecke wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 12:09:05PM +1000, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> > > > > I would like to remove in master (for the 4.0 release) the following
> > > > > parameters, and to give our users fair warning, I would like these
> > > > > marked as deprecated in 3.6:
> > > > 
> > > > Do you really want that? It would make life miserable for
> > > > the S3 developers to keep a 3.x release stream going.
> > > 
> > > The reason I asked was to find this out.  As I asked Jeremy on IRC: when
> > > will Samba 3.6 really branch?  It isn't my intention to make 3.6
> > > development difficult, but similarly if I am to help prepare for a 4.0
> > > release, there needs to be a time when these changes are acceptable in
> > > master.  
> > 
> > The next question is: What will the S3 developers work from
> > after 3.6 is released. If we fundamentally change source3 in
> > master, the only choice will be to work mainly in
> > v3-7-test branched from v3-6-test.
> 
> To my understanding, the plan that we discussed at sambaXP 2010
> and confirmed at the SNIA SDC 2010 was to try continue doing
> releases from master until we are really ready for 4.0.

That wasn't what I recalled (I recalled that we would next release 4.0),
but it certainly is what will happen unless we commit to making a 4.0
release our next priority.  

If we decide that there 'might be' a 3.7 release, and that this release
will be made from master, then there is simply no reason that we won't
make a 3.7 release.  There will be many great features I'm sure, and it
is a very easy default path to take.  

The downside is that if we chose this path, there will never be a Samba
4.0 release, because given the conditions that the team has agreed (that
the release be an integrated whole), there will be no time or place to
perform that integration. 

I've done some of that work in the past, and I'm willing to do that work
in the future.  But as a team we need to agree that we want to release
Samba 4.0 as more than just a 'sometime' project.  

On the homepage of SambaXP http://www.samba.xp.de/index.php?id=14 I was
intrigued and excited to see John announcing the impending release of
the Samba Directory Server.  I'm exited to be part of that - but we also
need to commit to actually getting there, and part of that commitment is
that we can't continue business as usual.  Many people including
yourself have put time and effort into merging the codebases, and we
need to commit to finishing that effort, so our users who we ultimately
serve can finally see a 4.0 release. 

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team           http://samba.org
Samba Developer, Cisco Inc.