[vtk-developers] Patch integration frequency

[David E DeMarle]

On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 12:02 PM, TINGAUD Frederic
<Frederic.TINGAUD at murex.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> As I am still quite new to the list, I don’t yet have a vision of VTK
> evolution frequency.
>
> I see that a 5.10.1 has been released a few days ago. How often does this
> kind of minor release happen?

VTK releases have no particular schedule. We aim for a new release a
couple of times a year, and typically alternate minor (major.minor.0)
and patch releases (major.minor.patch). We rarely do more than one
patch release per minor release.

> Is it the only moment were patch branches are
> merged into the master branch or are they merged continuously and the tag
> just freezes the state of the master at a given point?

The master branch continuously changes as we add new code.

We make major/minor releases by picking some good point on the master
branch to start a new release branch from. Once the  release branch is
tested enough we tag it and update the downloads page.

Afterward the release branch grows only when we do a patch release.
These consists of just important bug fixes. New features go in via the
master branch only.

>
> Do we have a vague idea about the ETA of next major release?

6.0.0 will be ready about January when a handful of remaining features
go in and when the regression test dashboards get cleaned up. You
should try it by checking out the master branch from git.

David E DeMarle
Kitware, Inc.
R&D Engineer
21 Corporate Drive
Clifton Park, NY 12065-8662
Phone: 518-881-4909