[LLVMdev] LLVM 3.3 dot releases

Tom Stellard
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:39:21 -0000

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 09:59:52AM +0100, David Chisnall
wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> On 24 Jun 2013, at 17:08, Tom Stellard <tom at stellard.net> wrote:
>
> > I've come up with the following dot release 'rules':
> >
> > + Dot releases will follow the same procedure as major releases, which
> >  means stable patches must be approved by the appropriate code owner
and
> >  that dot releases will have the same testing and qualification
requirements.
> >
> > + No regressions.  If a patch to the stable branch introduces a
regression
> >  that cannot be fixed, it will be reverted.
> >
> > + Participation from developers is optional.  If developers don't
have
> >  time to help with issues in the stable branch, they do not have to.
>
> What are the rules about API / ABI stability within the point releases?
From our perspective downstream, it would be nice to have bug-fix incremental
releases that were binary compatible, so that we could just pull them in and not
worry about breaking anything.  It would be okay to have things that were source
compatible, but slightly less useful.  It would be of no benefit to us if there
are backwards-incompatible API changes in the point releases.
>

Definitely no API changes allowed.  I think it makes sense to keep the
ABI stable as well.  My guess is most users would prefer this.

-Tom