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[cross-project-issues-dev] New components in Mars.1 (was Re: Eclipse Mars 1 RC4 issue with Buildship / workspace prompt)

Hi Doug

I was aware that 'maintenance' rules had been relaxed for Mars.1 rather than Mars SR1 but I had no idea that it had gone so far as to allow radically new configuration breaking contributions.

Although I no longer wear an industrial hat, I still have some sympathies with industrial requirements.

Software version x.0 is always a bit exciting, so where stability is required, it is prudent to wait for x.1 or equivalent (e.g. for those who can remember RSX-11M, even releases were exciting, odd releases were more stable.)

At the root of this industrial practice is a very high probability that x.1 will be better than x.0.

When we had strict rules about SR1 and SR2, we had this very high probability of relative improvement.

It seems that the rules have been relaxed so far that there is no reason to expect that Mars.1 is either better or worse than Mars with respect to existing use cases, so why would an industrial user choose Mars.1 rather than Mars? We just have three times as many configurations in longer term usage, with no change permitted for fear of changed problems.

Why use clumsy confusing names such as "Mars.1"? Why not be honest and admit that Mars.1 is a new release and give it a new name? Why not be useful and provide credible maintenance releases for industrial users?

What we are currently doing seems to violate some of the principles of the Simultaneous Release. It is there to avoid anarchy. Post Mars.1 we will find rumor-based usage instructions such as:

Make sure you pick up EGIT from Mars.1
Make sure you do not pick Buildship
....

Nobody will know what they're doing and as committers we will have much greater difficulty discovering user's configurations.

    Regards

        Ed Willink


On 23/09/2015 14:39, Doug Schaefer wrote:
Hi

[I'm not clear why a new product is a problem with a 'maintenance'
release; I guess I've become too accustomed to traditional Eclipse
practices..]
Or you missed the memo that these arenĀ¹t maintenance releases anymore.
Another sign we really need to improve our communication around this.

Doug




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