branching in packages?

[Ilya N. Golubev]

> But CVS HEAD == most recent
> release most of the time.

For `xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/comint.el' is was not so since
2006/05/25 02:49:47 -0 (revision 1.14).  So packages may stay in this
state fairly long, and figuring last stable source fast is very
helpful.


> I see no way to
> determine from most change logs whether a bug was caught in the
> prerelease stage, or after public release.

Agree that need also numbers of stable package versions - from master
package download site, or from announce archive.  That list of
versions that were released as stable is not kept otherwise, that is,
in cvs itself, is also at least inconvenient.

> Nor is there usually a way
> to tell whether the bug was introduced in the changes leading up to
> the current release, or whether it was present previously.

Agree that this is rarely put in package change logs.  Most likely
have to be familiar with bug reports in mailing lists - or have one's
own package use experience, as in my case. :-/


> It's a packaging bug if the code does not install or load correctly.
> If an error occurs after loading, it's a bug in Lisp code.

This definition is at least easily written - however, depending on
particular user environment, the same bug may manifest either only
after loading or when loading.  To consider `comint.el', most of bugs
fixed after revision 1.14 were <Lisp code> ones.  Still there are some
reasons not to release it as stable yet.  At least some of these bugs
were introduced by that revision.

`find-func' revision 1.10 fix was also for <Lisp code> bug, and
introduced after last stable release.  

It appears that packages with last version different from current
stable one, and largely due to <Lisp code> bugs, are quite common.
This is why need a standard, easily automated way to obtain / keep
last stable sources.