[dev] Branches (again), Horde 4.1/5, recent IMAP changes

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Michael J Rubinsky <mrubinsk at horde.org>:

> (1) I know that we are to make no BC breaks until Horde 5, and I  
> also know that we have made some semi-bc breaking changes during  
> this cycle and simply changed the application's minimum required  
> version of the dependency. I'm assuming these were unavoidable  
> changes, but it brings up a broader question in my mind: When is it  
> ok to require a newer version of some dependency? Only during major  
> version releases? Minor versions?Never during bug fix releases?
>
> (2) How do individual framework packages fit into the stable  
> branch/dev branch. Since they are now released separately, do we  
> still stick to the no-new-features-in-master paradigm for these?  
> Since these have been (up until now, anyway) released on a more  
> frequent cycle I'm not sure this makes sense. Horde_Foo may have  
> some new feature, or major bug fix that required the minor number to  
> be bumped - and I'm not sure I would want to wait the up to 6 months  
> until the next time dev is merged into master for the next release  
> cycle.
>
> Similarly, what about *new* packages? Real world example, I started  
> working on a Service_Weather package to replace the now mostly  
> useless Services_Weather_Weatherdotcom(?). I really don't want to  
> wait for another 6 months before it can be released, so I started it  
> in master. This library would be used by both Horde (for a new  
> weather block) and by Timeobjects (to feed Kronolith with weather  
> data). Whether this can go in before the next minor/major release is  
> another question, and I guess it depends on how big a deal failure  
> of the existing weather data is. My vote would be before the next  
> minor release. Yes, it's a "new" feature, but it's replacing an  
> existing (now broken feature).

These were some of the concerns I brought up during the initial  
release cycle.  But it does seem like we came to an agreement since  
the initial releases that requiring minimum versions of packages for  
an application is acceptable (this is one of the major advantages of  
using PEAR - it would make no sense if we didn't take advantage of  
this).

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]