[Insight-developers] Backward Compatibility

[Andreas Keil]

Dear ITK developers,

triggered by the "adopt a bug program" - I consider getting more involved
in ITK. For this reason, I kindly ask you to point me to ITK's backward
compatibility policy. So far, I found the sources mentioned at
http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK_Policies_and_Procedures which tell me that
this issue is still an open discussion. I am still wondering how strictly
backward compatibility is enforced, i.e. in which cases backward
compatibility is allowed to be broken. (I mean, there must be cases where
it may be broken, e.g. when fixing severe bugs.)
I am specifically wondering about the following two bugs I reported:

# 0004560 (http://www.itk.org/Bug/view.php?id=4560)
Here, I would vote for reopening the issue and throwing exceptions
whenever one of the Set... methods is called with the parameter i out of
bounds. Throwing an error here would not really change ITK's behaviour. It
would only change the exception handling which is anyways only performed
in case a user used the class incorrectly. If I were such a user, I would
be glad to have a changed behaviour here, wouldn't I?

# 0006558 (http://www.itk.org/Bug/view.php?id=6558)
In the case of this so far unattended but IMHO really severe bug, every
fix would change behaviour since the current implementation is plain
wrong. I would have volunteered to work on a fix. However, I don't feel
experienced enough to work on this bug which is located in the heart of
ITK - the ImageBase class, esp. since it requires changing ITK's
behaviour.

Looking forward to your comments,
Andreas.



-----Original Message-----
From: insight-users-bounces at itk.org [mailto:insight-users-bounces at itk.org]
On Behalf Of Luis Ibanez
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 04:25
To: Insight Users
Subject: [Insight-users] PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT: "ADOPT A BUG"




            Our bugs are feeling sad and lonely
                  due to lack of attention.




         We have decided to give them out for adoption.




            Join now the "Adopt a Bug" program,
                and help us make ITK a more
                useful and reliable toolkit.




As you probably have heard from recent posts to the mailing list,
ITK is in need of a *bug purification campaign*. We have a collection
of bugs that have been lingering for quite a while, and some of
them even have fixes proposed by the bug reporters.


In order to tackle this challenge, we would like to engage the
*collective intelligence* of the users community.


One of the strongest assets of Open Source is the enormous potential of
the large number of users that can make small localized contributions.

The cumulative effect of those contributions can not possibly be matched
by a traditional organization. There is no way that the developers team
could ever compete with the aggregated brain power of more than 1500
well-educated users currently subscribed to the mailing list.



We are looking for courageous users willing to contribute some hours
of their time to ensure that our bugs receive the care that they
deserve.



By adopting any of our dearest 257 open bugs, you will commit to
take the steps needed for making sure that your adopted bug gets
fixed before the release of ITK 3.8.



We care about our bugs and therefore we will not simply give them
away to strangers. Bug adoptive parents should satisfy the following
requirements:


     1) Have good C++ skills


     2) Adhere to the Dashboard quality practices


     3) Subscribe to the following strong parental attitude:

           "If you guys don't fix it, I will fix it"


     4) Respect the backward compatibility policy




As a participant in the "Adopt a Bug" program you will receive CVS write
access to the ITK repository and you will be entitled to commit bug
fixes by yourself. You will be encouraged to work with other developers
in finding consensus on the best way to fix a bug.



As ITK users you probably will be interested in a particular bug
that may be making difficult for you to get your project done.
That one will probably be the best bug for you to adopt since you
will be directly interested in getting that bug fixed as soon
as possible.



        Please join the "Adopt a Bug" program today
        and help make ITK a better place to program.

        Pick your Bug now at:

               http://public.kitware.com/Bug


        and send us email so that we can take care
        of the adoption paperwork.




   Thanks


      Luis