[gmx-developers] numbering of next GROMACS release

Mon Aug 31 12:52:22 CEST 2015

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback (here and elsewhere). People seem generally in
favour of something that increases monotonically, indicates the age of the
program, and that encourages fixed release cycles. There also needs to be a
way to separate clearly a bug-fix release from a new-feature release.
There's little enthusiasm now for more than one feature release per year.

So, unless/until we find a problem, we'll
* call the next release "GROMACS 2016"
* number its bug-fix releases 2016.1, 2016.2, etc. approximately every two
months
* call its git branch "release-2016"
* support it for approximately a year (i.e. fix pretty much any issue
arising on targeted platforms & simulations, "best effort" otherwise)
* retain the option to make another bug fix release at some future time
(generally only if some serious MD-correctness issue has been fixed)

Mark

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 6:28 PM Justin Lemkul <jalemkul at vt.edu> wrote:

>
>
> On 8/19/15 4:24 PM, Erik Lindahl wrote:
> > I agree with James; I've seen several cases where people had no idea
> they were
> > using versions that were several years old...
> >
> > It would also be nice to get rid of the permanent question whether
> changes are
> > large enough to warrant a full version bump.
> >
>
> I would be in favor of a versioning scheme that also has fixed intervals.
> For
> instance, if we have a new version called GROMACS-2016.1 that is released
> in
> January 2016 (hence 1 for the month) and then we release periodically
> through
> the year (April = 2016.4, July = 2016.7, etc).  This is what CHARMM does -
> we
> have regular releases in February (alpha version) and August (final
> version).
> The 2016.x numbering can be whatever month the version is released, and
> whatever
> doesn't make the cut, doesn't make the cut.  Have a feature freeze a
> couple of
> weeks before the first of the new month when we want a release to deal
> with code
> review and we're set. In this way, we eliminate a lot of delays we've had
> in the
> past for holding off on releases, unless there's something really major
> that
> needs to get fixed.
>
> -Justin
>
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Erik
> >
> > Erik Lindahl <erik.lindahl at scilifelab.se <mailto:
> erik.lindahl at scilifelab.se>>
> > Professor of Biophysics
> > Science for Life Laboratory
> > Stockholm University & KTH
> > Office (SciLifeLab): +46 8 524 81567
> > Cell (Sweden): +46 73 4618050
> > Cell (US): +1 267 3078746
> >
> >
> > On 19 aug 2015, at 16:27, Barnett, James W <jbarnet4 at tulane.edu
> > <mailto:jbarnet4 at tulane.edu>> wrote:
> >
> >> I think some form of full year (e) or year/month (f) version number
> would work
> >> well. My preference would be the full year, because it makes it even
> more
> >> clear when a person is using an out-of-date version.  Mentally there's a
> >> bigger difference between GROMACS 2008/2015 than GROMACS 4.0/5.1 ("I'm
> only
> >> using one major version older than the current version" vs. "I'm using
> >> software from 7 years ago").
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> James “Wes” Barnett/, /Ph.D. Candidate
> >>
> >> Louisiana Board of Regents Fellow
> >> //
> >>
> >> Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
> >>
> >>
> >> Tulane University
> >>
> >> 341-B Lindy Boggs Center for Energy and Biotechnology
> >>
> >> 6823 St. Charles Ave
> >> New Orleans, Louisiana 70118-5674
> >>
> >> jbarnet4 at tulane.edu <mailto:jbarnet4 at tulane.edu>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> *From:* gromacs.org_gmx-developers-bounces at maillist.sys.kth.se
> >> <mailto:gromacs.org_gmx-developers-bounces at maillist.sys.kth.se>
> >> <gromacs.org_gmx-developers-bounces at maillist.sys.kth.se
> >> <mailto:gromacs.org_gmx-developers-bounces at maillist.sys.kth.se>> on
> behalf of
> >> Mark Abraham <mark.j.abraham at gmail.com <mailto:mark.j.abraham at gmail.com
> >>
> >> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 19, 2015 6:56 AM
> >> *To:* Discussion list for GROMACS development
> >> *Subject:* [gmx-developers] numbering of next GROMACS release
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> It's time to start discussions about future releases. Several of us
> think it
> >> would be a good idea to switch to a numbering scheme that reflects what
> we're
> >> actually doing - releasing the code at a particular point of time.
> Ubuntu does
> >> this with their 15.04 style numbering (YY.MM <http://YY.MM>) and so
> does
> >> Visual Studio with "2015" (though they also have a number behind the
> scenes).
> >> Other projects do as we have done and have a major and minor number
> that are
> >> bumped whenever people feel like it (e.g. our 4.0, stillborn 4.1, 4.5,
> 4.6,
> >> 5.0, 5.1). Major.minor is not a great fit for GROMACS because we're not
> in the
> >> business of promising certain features before we release. Some packages
> just
> >> have a number and bump it (AMBER), but that makes it tricky to handle
> patch
> >> releases (I think they just put up patch files and leave the user to
> work out
> >> how to use it).
> >>
> >> In no case does what anybody numbers anything imply anything particular
> about
> >> the reliability of a release, so this is not a relevant consideration
> here.
> >> For example, Ubuntu LTS and RHEL promises to maintain for a long time
> and not
> >> to change stuff, but there's nothing particularly special about the
> >> reliability of such a version when it starts out - they still just
> picked a
> >> set of packages and tested it a bit.
> >>
> >> So the options for a 2016 release are (in most cases, the next patch
> release
> >> will get a .1 suffix)
> >> a) GROMACS 5.2 (no matter what)
> >> b) GROMACS 5.2 (unless we feel like confusing ourselves by deciding on
> 6.0
> >> later on)
> >> c) GROMACS 6 (planning 7 next, plus some undecided scheme for numbering
> patch
> >> releases, but *not* 6.1)
> >> d) GROMACS 6.0 (and probably planning 6.1 next)
> >> e) GROMACS 2016
> >> f) GROMACS 16.06 (and we won't change the month because we aren't going
> to let
> >> it slip; maybe this lets us consider doing 16.12 also)
> >> g) other?
> >>
> >> What do people think? Anyone voting for c) or g) needs to add detail.
> >>
> >> Mark
> >> --
> >> Gromacs Developers mailing list
> >>
> >> * Please search the archive at
> >> http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists/GMX-developers_List
> before posting!
> >>
> >> * Can't post? Read http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists
> >>
> >> * For (un)subscribe requests visit
> >> https://maillist.sys.kth.se/mailman/listinfo/gromacs.org_gmx-developers
> or
> >> send a mail to gmx-developers-request at gromacs.org
> >> <mailto:gmx-developers-request at gromacs.org>.
> >
> >
>
> --
> ==================================================
>
> Justin A. Lemkul, Ph.D.
> Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow
>
> Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
> School of Pharmacy
> Health Sciences Facility II, Room 629
> University of Maryland, Baltimore
> 20 Penn St.
> Baltimore, MD 21201
>
> jalemkul at outerbanks.umaryland.edu | (410) 706-7441
> http://mackerell.umaryland.edu/~jalemkul
>
> ==================================================
> --
> Gromacs Developers mailing list
>
> * Please search the archive at
> http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists/GMX-developers_List before
> posting!
>
> * Can't post? Read http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists
>
> * For (un)subscribe requests visit
> https://maillist.sys.kth.se/mailman/listinfo/gromacs.org_gmx-developers
> or send a mail to gmx-developers-request at gromacs.org.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://maillist.sys.kth.se/pipermail/gromacs.org_gmx-developers/attachments/20150831/af491a18/attachment.html>