New 1.14 RC date?

[Jason Earl]

Ben Finney <ben+bazaar at benfinney.id.au> writes:

> Vincent Ladeuil <v.ladeuil+lp at free.fr> writes:
>
>> People are aware that this is a development format and that we will
>> be even more responsive than usual to any problem they may encounter
>> using it.
>> 
>> I even suspect some of them may have already started playing with it
>> but wait for a more official version before giving feedback.
>
> I don't agree with this at all. What ground do you have for stating
> that “people are aware that this is a development format”? Was that
> also true of previous development formats that appeared in releases,
> and if not, what has changed since then?

It's not like the new format will be the new *default* format.

> Those who are waiting for a “more official” version are, IME, waiting
> for a “more reliable” version. Such people are deliberately *not*
> running a development version so they can be sure that everything
> they're running is blessed as “release quality”. Pushing a
> still-needs-feedback format into a release in an attempt to get it
> used by such users has *not* worked well in the past, and I see no
> reason why it would work any better this time.

The reason that bzr has had trouble with development formats in the past
is that bzr has a long standing tradition of problematic formats leading
clear back to tar.gz based formats in baz.  I love bzr, but that's the
gospel truth.  Anyone with a non-trivial sized project in bzr jumps on
the new formats the second that the get into bzr.dev, because we *need*
the new format.

If the default format branches were getting it done for us, you wouldn't
hear a peep about new formats.  However, that's not the case.  The
sooner the bzr team can get onto a format that is good enough to
stabilize the better.

> If you want to attract more testing and feedback for the format, that
> is a signal that it needs to stay *out* of the release, IMO, and that
> instead you should be attracting the type of users who *want* to do
> such testing of in-development functionality. An official release is
> not the place to seek such users.

No one is going to spend effort testing a format that hasn't even landed
on bzr.dev.  They'll maybe poke at it a bit (the same what that the bzr
developers are poking at it a bit now), but they won't spend time and
effort actually trying to upgrade their repositories, or convert new
repositories, until they can download a client that actually can use the
repository.  In short, your end users aren't going to find bugs in the
new format until the new format makes into the monthly release of bzr.
You could land brisbane-core a year from now and all you will be doing
is postponing the bug reports.  If your test cases don't trip the bugs
up at this point (or trigger performance regressions) then simply adding
more time in development is not going to make any difference.

Perhaps[1] I am a bit bitter because my own work on the Emacs repository
is on hold until brisbane-core lands, but I can't imagine that I am the
only person waiting around for brisbane-core to be more widely
available.

The fact of the matter is that the current default format is essentially
a *legacy* format.  The sooner you land what is hopefully the format bzr
developers *really* want the better for all of us.

If you want make it so you don't get the new format unless the user
passes a complex series of dire warning flags you can do that.  Let me
suggest something like this:

bzr init-repo --format=you_really_shouldnt_do_this --reckless \
    --likely-to-end-civilization-as-we-know-it \
    --if-it-breaks-you-get-to-keep-both-pieces \
    --im-afraid-i-cant-allow-you-to-do-that-dave \
    --this-flag-kills-a-kitten \
    new_repo

Landing brisbane-core is clearly the most important thing that is likely
to happen to bzr in the next several months (although the EOL stuff is
pretty important for some folks :).  If it is as good in real life as it
appears to be it is likely to be the most important thing that happens
to bzr this year.  A release where brisbane-core misses by just a few
days is simply ridiculous.

Jason

Footnotes: 
[1]  Actually, I am definitely bitter.