New DejaGNU Release?

Hello Jacob, hi all,

I am wondering whether there shouldn't be a new DejaGNU release
at some point. The last one was 5 years ago, cf.
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/dejagnu/
1.6 was released 2016-04-15 and 1.6.3 then 2021-06-16.

It seems as if some of the changes should make it at some point
into the distros, but that typically only happens for releases
and not for git versions (unless someone at the distro actively
tracks a project).

While there is no rush to do a release, please consider to do
one eventually, also because quite some changes have accumulated.

Thanks for your steady work on DejaGNU!

* * *

It seems as if 148 commits have been done after 1.6.3 branching
- or 101 if using 'git logdejagnu-1.6.3..master' as some 1.6.3 have been merged to mainline.
NEWS currently only lists:
  Changes since 1.6.3:

  X. DejaGnu now always runs in the POSIX locale.  Additionally, environment
     variables such as CDPATH that are widely-known and intended for user
     customization are unset during early initialization.

And

   git log --oneline remotes/origin/dejagnu-1.6.3..master runtest* 
testglue.c lib/ baseboards/ (this excludes some files, esp. the 
testsuite directory) shows the following changes: 3eb7e32 Update 
ChangeLog and copyright date 8df0add ssh.exp: do not call rm in ssh_exec 
22fcd9b ssh.exp: implement ssh_spawn 1f6b217 ssh.exp: force pty 
allocation in ssh_exec dbc8ec8 ssh.exp: do not use '&&' with 
'XYZ${?}ZYX' logic df37452 Avoid error if HOME is not set in the 
environment f8737d9 Remove use of tilde expansion to accommodate Tcl 9 
12ec17e Neutralize customization environment variables in DejaGnu 
90ffbb7 Ensure that testsuites run in the POSIX locale 6f18e7a Change 
use of fconfigure(n) to accommodate Tcl 9 3d1fa86 Convert Tcl case to 
switch in baseboards/qemu.exp 4ba510d Adjust H8 support to accommodate 
changes in GCC cc801fa Update restored H8 support following other 
changes a1fdb17 Restore H8 support files from history 899e151 Revise 
comments in testglue.c bc809b7 Add ANSI prototypes to testglue.c 5957611 
Annotate #ifdef blocks in testglue.c 3ea7702 Oops, fix comment block 
b2956c9 Oops, fix commednt block 28fb424 Add missing copyright 26e211d 
Add handling of incomplete unit test program runs 4981890 Add Zsh 
compatibility prologue to scripts 20306d7 Fix shellcheck warnings 
53423f9 Change #! lines in launcher scripts 7be57b7 Fix reading of user 
login name eba9cab Tidy last stragglers omitted due to various 
oversights 299b786 Update most license notices to refer to WWW address 
1c09c99 Tidy license notices for files that should be part of DejaGnu 
ed301db Adjust patterns for the GNU linker in prune_warnings ef0e2f9 
Harmonise test execution reporting across protocols fbdcba4 Use 
`test_timeout' consistently across protocols a877b41 Fix tests that 
attempt to determine if target_alias has been set c298959 Fix handling 
of lists given as command-line parameters 4d82991 Add support for errors 
and warnings in the unit test protocol add1e3e Add UNSUPPORTED test 
result to DejaGnu unit test protocol 999b7c0 Add explicit end-of-test 
marker to DejaGnu unit test protocol d747eee Buffer test results in case 
the pruning callback aborts the test c5964e8 Reset error and warning 
counters before running each test file cd94f06 Adjust conditional for 
broken legacy case be4c9af Merge fixes from 1.6.3 release branch 96d3794 
Add initial infrastructure for DejaGnu "specs" strings 634b5bc Update 
version numbers for continued development Thanks, Tobias PS: I am personally looking forward to ssh.exp passing on env vars,
esp. those set in GCC's dg-set-target-env-var, but that's yet to be
implemented; Joseph mentioned the feature in his patch set overview
email (as missing feature, not addressed in the meanwhile fully
merged patchset).