To release Samba 4.0 'as is'

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Wed, 2011-11-23 at 16:23 -0500, simo wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-11-22 at 17:13 +1100, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> > 
> > What do others think?
> 
> I think this plan makes no sense.
> 
> Dropping an alpha release on the floor and slapping the "stable" sticker
> on it is not what our users expect.

Simo,

I think you have seriously misunderstood my proposal.  As a Software
Engineer, I do not drop releases on the floor and call them "stable".
I'm more than happy to continue to make alpha releases, but what I'm
suggesting is that we gather our current state, and proceed in an
orderly fashion to a beta or pre-release, without first making major 
architectural changes.  In short I'm suggesting that now is a good 
time for a feature freeze.

> I no way the waf build is currently usable in production for the file
> server part.

Can you please tell me what specifically is unsuitable about the smbd or
samba file server under the waf build?

> Many have chimed here so I will not repeat all the very sane points made
> by a great number of people, please listen to them and do not just
> dismiss their concern. They may be related to specific issues that may
> look minor to you. But I assure you they are definitely not.

I've seen a number of concerns, and I've asked for them to be spelled
out, some in technical detail.  I'll patiently wait for those technical
details, so I can address those which I am able, because with specific 
issues we can take specific action.

> We are the people that will have to *support* whatever is dropped out
> there. And we want to be comfortable we *can* do that job. We currently
> can't without still great pains.

I have no intention to 'drop' anything 'out there'.  I would like to
propose that the team move to a feature freeze, and then a beta or
pre-release.  

In terms of support, I and others working on the AD components have
carried the support for those components for quite some time now, and
I'm sure that will continue.

> Any regressions in the build system or in the file server functionality
> is not acceptable. 

Are there any current regressions I should be aware of?

Andrew Bartlett

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