[sane-devel] Schedule for release of sane-backends 1.0.25

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

m. allan noah writes:

> It has been 2 years since our last release, so here we go again:
>
> Timetable:
> Sept 19, 2015: Feature freeze (only bugs, translation and doc updates)
> Sept 26, 2015: Code freeze (only horrible bugs, translation and doc updates)
> Oct 03, 2015: Release
>
> Note, it is highly likely that there are patches from end users which
> we failed to apply. If you know of such a case, please speak up, so we
> can start a dialog about including them in the release. Olaf has been
> doing some of this work, but he could use some help from backend
> authors as well as end users.

After following and occasionally responding to the list @the-office for
well over a decade, I have finally decided to volunteer some of my free
time to the SANE project.  In an attempt to avoid confusion, I will be
using my member.fsf.org mail account for my volunteer effort related
mails.

The main reason that I decided to volunteer was that I think that the
SANE project could use a janitor, somebody who looks after all of the
stuff that is not really backend specific.  This kind of work I can't
do @the-office where I am forced to wear a "corporate hat", so in the
end I concluded that doing this in my "free" time was the only way to
get any SANE Project Janitor work done.  I'll be wearing a "community
hat" in my free time ;-)

There you have it, I'll be your self-appointed SANE Project Janitor for
as long as it'll last.

I have a couple of things on my mental todo list but for now let's focus
on getting sane-backends-1.0.25 out by 2015-10-03.

I have trudged through the mailing list archive all the way back to
2015-01-01 looking for patches that have not been applied.  Most of
these have been committed recently.  Some of those were confirmed as not
really meant for master.  There are still a few things that I mean to
get to that were posted after Allan sent the first notice for a new
release.  Also, Luiz and Matteo (the OpenWRT folks?) recently have been
"inundating" the list with patches that I will have a look at.

I am not comfortable (yet) committing directly to the git repository on
Alioth.  For the time being, I will prep proposed upgrade (pu) branches
on my clone of master at GitLab[1] and ask the more seasoned developers
to pull specific branches.  Those pu branches will be based on patches
that are sent to or mentioned on the list or some of my own work.

 [1] https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends/branches

> During the period leading up to the release, it would be helpful if we
> could get some builds on various platforms, and tests done with
> various scanners. The sooner we discover problems, the better.

With respect to the build, I would like to see any changes to the build
system in as soon as possible.  That is, any changes to configure.in,
acinclude.m4 and any of the Makefile.am files should go in real soon.
These kind of changes are most likely to lead to hiccups when building
on less common systems.  Backend specific changes are much less likely
to be affected by build system idiosyncracies (unless they explicitly
rely on them of course).

Luiz mentioned issues with u_char and u_long as well as with inb and
outb that may affect the build system.  Matteo's PNG and JPEG patches
also affect the build system.  I will have a look at all of these first
but in the mean time feel free to take a look at any of the unassigned
bugs[2] or feature requests[3] at Alioth.

 [2] https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/index.php?group_id=30186&atid=410366
 [3] https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/index.php?group_id=30186&atid=410369

Looking at some recent activity[4], I see that some of the developers
have been cleaning up a bit already.  Thanks, that'll make my janitor
"job" a bit easier ;-)

 [4] https://alioth.debian.org/activity/?group_id=30186

Finally, I won't be around during the weekend of the code freeze.  I've
got a 45km trail run that weekend.  I will have Monday through Wednesday
off after the feature freeze weekend though!  But then again, we may go
off camping for a day or two during that period.  Guess I'll just get to
doing janitorial work whenever I have time and feel like it.

Hope this helps,
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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