[Project-managers] Proposed Version and Release System for COIN-OR Projects

[Ted Ralphs]

Dear project managers,

After the recent successful transition to Trac, SVN, and the autotools,
the Technical Leadership Council has taken as its next challenge the
task of developing a standard system of assigning version numbers and
developing stable releases for COIN-OR projects. We believe that having
a standard system for numbering versions and declaring stable releases
will be a huge step forward for the both the developers and the users of
foundation software, as it will result in more stable code for end
users, will improve the ability of users to report bugs and developers
to fix them, as well as enabling the systematic release of stable
binaries. After much discussion, we have settled on a three-digit
release system that is fairly standard among open source projects and is
roughly the one recommended as a "best practice" by the developers of
subversion. A brief outline of the proposal is posted on the TLC wiki here:

https://projects.coin-or.org/CoinTLC/wiki/VersionsAndReleases

Please note that this proposal assumes some familiarity with the inner
workings of subversion. Subversion can be quite confusing at first, if
you are new to it, so it is probably a good idea to first familiarize
yourself with subversion before trying to fully digest the proposal.
Some tips on getting started with subversion and pointers to other
sources are at the BuildTools wiki here:

https://projects.coin-or.org/BuildTools/wiki/pm-svn

Note also that the proposal is not extremely detailed at this time. When
and if it is officially adopted, more extensive tutorial materials will
be made available to help PMs transition to the new system.

There will be an open comment period on the proposal for the next two
weeks, after which the policy will be finalized. Following the
development of the final policy, there will be a period of transition
during which all project managers will be expected to create their first
stable release and reorganize the directories in their subversion
repository to comply with the new structure. Please post comments and
questions to the project manager's mailing list by COB Monday, September
11. Thanks for your support.

Cheers,

Ted Ralphs
TLC Chair
Associate Professor
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Lehigh University
(610)758-4784
tkralphs at lehigh.edu
www.lehigh.edu/~tkr2