Re: [PROPOSAL] Going forward with Maven 2.x releases

> Hi,
>
> I'd like to propose that we put together a plan for the next few
> releases of Maven, and also a plan for what we're going to call them.
> There has been quite a bit of discussion here, on IRC, and in the back
> channels about how to structure this, so let's see if we can reach a
> consensus.
>
> To start, I'd personally prefer to see the code we current have in the
> release process designated as 2.1.0. It's seen a lot of change to the
> internal implementations, and while we've gone to great lengths to
> ensure it's functionally compatible with 2.0.x, it contains a fairly
> risky level of change for a revision release. This means that the
> 2.0.x branch would be rolled back to the 2.0.9 release, and we'd
> proceed toward a 2.0.10 that fixes the worst of the regressions with a
> minimal of code change. At that point, I'd prefer to see 2.0.x go into
> end-of-life mode soon, with 2.1 and later replacing it.
>
> From there, I'd propose that we make a plan. I think we have a long
> list of features we'd like to implement and other features we'd really
> like to reimplement. No doubt each of us has his/her favorites, but
> what I'd like to suggest is using the survey tool we used for the
> plugin priorities to come up with a ordered set of priorities for the
> features we want to include. Then, we can chop that list up (maybe
> every fourth feature), and call them 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, etc. At this
> point, 2.1 would be a baseline that is as near as possible to perfect
> compatibility with 2.0.x, and 2.1.1 might fix regressions in that code
> until we have the agreed-upon features for 2.2 done.
>
> We could stay two or three major releases ahead of ourselves using
> this list, and triage new feature requests as they come up, to see if
> we need to reshuffle the release plan. The point is, without putting
> calendar dates on things, we'd be putting together a what - and,
> relatively speaking, when - plan for our releases that we could publish.
>
> In case you're concerned about who's going to drive the items on this
> list, my own feeling is that it needs to capture the sense of the
> development community. To that end, the survey should be conducted
> among developers, without direct input from users. However, each
> developer should be acting in the interests of the user community at
> least part of the time, so we need to focus on balancing the cool with
> the useful to make sure our releases are relevant to users.
>
> Of course, it also means that all of us will sometimes have to be
> patient for the feature near and dear to our hearts to come up in the
> release plan, and help get the other things out of the way first.
> However, I think this could help us unify a lot of the different
> directions we all seem to be heading WRT Maven's core, and maybe keep
> things moving forward at a steady pace.
>
>
> To get things started, we have a long list of proposals out here:
>
> http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVEN/All+Proposals
>
>
> Also, from users, we have these:
>
> http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/User+Proposals
>
>
> But I'm sure this is at most 10% of what people have in mind for
> Maven. Maybe we can have a short discussion of things we need to be
> doing in the relatively near term for the health of Maven, then cap
> that discussion and turn it into a survey to help us consolidate
> priorities. Then, we can chop them up into a release plan and get
> started.
>
> Does this make sense? Does anyone feel that this is wildly off target?
>
> -john
>