Re: package tarballs

Mark Brand wrote:
> 
> I'm just wondering if there is a possibility of providing automatically
> generated tarballs more recent then the last release 0.82.

Yes, it could be done, but I think we should discuss it.  

> You never know what you'll find when you download and
> unpack
> http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/freetds/current/freetds-current.tgz
> :).

I hadn't thought of that.  In stable/freetds-stable.tgz  is a symbolic
link to freetds-0.82.tar.gz, but it's not done that way in current/, nor
for freetds-patched.tgz.  I think your strongest argument is for the
"automatic patched releases" to each have their own version e.g. 0.82.1 or
0.81.0.20100128.  

I think what you're really asking for, though, is more frequent releases.
It's a fair point.  The current ChangeLog is 2200+ lines and is two years
old.  

Releasing is not particularly fun, though.  The documentation has to be
updated, the ChangeLog summarized, testing done for unusual platforms. 
Since I've been doing it, we've had a release every 12-15 months or so,
which has always seemed about right to me in terms of the rate of progress
and the "release overhead".  

I wouldn't want to see mingw-cross-env distribute interim unofficial
machine-built pseudo-releases.  The documentation would be out of date;
there might be odd bugs owing to the mechanical cutoff.  I very much
believe FreeTDS should be useable from the docs, that no one should need
to turn to the mailing list to discover a feature or confirm a bug.  While
I doubt mingw-cross-env users would flood the list with questions, at the
same time I want their experience to be the best possible given our
resources.  

If you're mostly motivated by the latest sspi feature, you'll be pleased
to know we've been working toward the next release for a couple of months
now.  The documentation is mostly ready -- now with a new & improved
Troubleshooting section! -- so it shouldn't be long now.  Certainly before
spring in the northern hemisphere.  

--jkl