Hi there,

  I often wondered about the development model used by the POV-Team, and
only now dare I ask about it.  I haven't found a clear definition of how it
works, and I would like to.

  What I guessed from what I read so far is that the POV-Team is the
central development point, and any other person developping patches for
POV-Ray is completely independent.  Even if some bug fixes are used by the
POV-Team, there is apparently no real transparency, and the releases are
done only when the code is considered to be bug-free and stable.

  I'd like to introduce the idea of a slight modification of this model.  I
don't know how the POV-Team manages their sources, but I think they
probably use some kind of CVS.  So, why not use some kind of a read-only
CVS repository to keep all the unstable versions available to anyone who
wants them?  This, coupled with CVS-web, could be a much more efficient way
to keep everybody informed about the advances of the program.  And I'm
pretty sure one can commit changes with CVS that won't be taken into
account in the main development branch until validation by some authority.
Of course, the Official Releases stay under control of the Team.

  This is just a suggestion.  Plenty of programs are developped that way
(including big programs: Netscape, FreeBSD, egcs, The GIMP, and CVS itself
for instance), and their development is the most active and efficient I
know.  There is always one current release, but all the development
versions of all the files stay available.

  Well...  My two yen.  I'd like to know your opinion on that, though.

Roland.
-- 
Les francophones m'appellent Roland Mas,
English speakers call me Rowlannd' Mass,
Nihongode hanasu hitoha [Lolando Masu] to iimasu.
Choisissez ! Take your pick ! Erande kudasai !

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In article <m31### [at] rpc66acratrcojp> , mas### [at] acratrcojp (Roland Mas)
wrote:
>  I'd like to introduce the idea of a slight modification of this model.  I
>don't know how the POV-Team manages their sources, but I think they
>probably use some kind of CVS.

I think this has been answered some time ago somewhere (maybe the POVRAY forum?): No
version control system of any kind, just diff and patch.


    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: Tho### [at] csicom

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://www.povray.org

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Roland Mas wrote:
> So, why not use some kind of a read-only
> CVS repository to keep all the unstable versions available to anyone who
> wants them?

I agree there are problems with the current development model.
Officially reported bugs, with code fixes, go unchanged for
a year or more (ie the uv bug).  But there already exists
something close to what you describe :

http://twysted.net/PatchStation/

Dan

-- 
http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/

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I agree, but I don't think that the POV-Ray team needs to run this new
development model.  I think someone else could run it (it wouldn't violate
povlegal.doc, would it?).  Then, the POV-Ray Team could check in on it every
once in a while to get bug fixes and new features that they liked, once they
had been fully tested.

Of course, this implies that someone has free time and server space to
donate... 

-Nathan

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On Wed, 02 Dec 1998 12:19:30 -0500, Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] Koppcom> wrote:

>I agree, but I don't think that the POV-Ray team needs to run this new
>development model.  I think someone else could run it (it wouldn't violate
>povlegal.doc, would it?).  

I don't see how it would violate povlegal, other than the issue of having 
a stable build have a real name (e.g. the official maintainer's) on it, 
while the unstable tree would have to have the usual "insert name here" 
stuff in optout.h, and perhaps additional disclaimers and notices, since 
the official maintainer wouldn't want to take credit for just anything 
checked in by anyone, but it would have to be apparent to people getting
the code that it was not official.

>Of course, this implies that someone has free time and server space to
>donate... 

Someone (i.e. me) is already donating free time.  Lots of it.  Many bugfixes 
(especially the ones I reported) have made their way into the superpatch, 
though I need to go over your list and see which ones I missed.  All that 
needs to happen is that the superpatch gets put on a CVS server. Since I don't 
have a full-time connection capable of running CVS, I can't do that, but I 
would be happy to help out if someone else wants to do that.  Indeed, if 
someone wanted to donate some old hardware(*) to run Linux, I could probably 
get permission to set up a CVS server at work, though perhaps with limited
operating hours, depending on the load it would generate.

(*) Required hardware: 486/66 or better, case, power supply, 10baseT ethernet
card, video card.  I have a couple 200M HDs, but a bigger HD might be nice, too.
If the motherboard supports VLB, I have a video card already. If you have this 
rusting in a corner and want to contribute, give me a yell and I'll start 
seeing if I can get the requisite permissions and DNS assignments.

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