Release 4.0 after 3.6?

[Scott Lovenberg]

On 1/28/2011 5:13 PM, Jeremy Allison wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 08:02:32AM +1000, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
>> 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.
> IMHO if we need to do a 3.7 release (which I sincerely hope doesn't
> happen) we would need to branch from v3-6-test, not from master.
> Master needs to be prepared for a 4.0.0 release, until we branch
> off v4-0-test, when master will become the template for a 4.1.0
> release :-).
>
>> 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.
> Not strictly true (IMHO). A 3.7.0 release would be an admission
> of failure though.
>
>> 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.
> +1 from me.
>
>> 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.
> We're paddling as fast as we can in this canoe :-).
>
> Jeremy.
FWIW (and I've had a few beers), wearing my admin hat, I'm not going to 
use a 3.x release other than the RHEL version given to me (3.0.2X, 
IIRC).  While I appreciate the 3.x releases, I wonder who are actually 
using them.  Wearing my admin hat I plan on jumping from my 3.0 to 4.0 
since I only have to spend an all-nighter once.  I guess the more 
'progressive' distros will be shipping late version 3 releases, but the 
conservative distros are only shipping 3.0.X and (later in the cycle) 
4.0 releases.

I'd prefer time being spent on a 4.x release over 3.x releases that I'll 
never run in production.  Take this with a grain of salt, but I think 
I'm somewhat representative of admins everywhere.  Why risk breaking 
stuff for a stopgap release?

To be fair, I have a few patches in the CIFS utils package.  So I still 
have roots in the development side of things, but I wonder if the 
concentration of effort belongs in the 3 series when the 4 series is the 
most wanted target.

I send this with nothing but respect for the Samba team.