A question ragarding stable releases

[Tomaso]

With all other software that I know of, users are adviced into using the stable releases.
..but with Miranda NG, stable releases are only issued extremely rarely.
Even when essential components are completely broken (like the old MSN protocol), there's no new stable release to fix the situation.
This despite the fact that the problem often seems to have been properly fixed in the developent builds long time ago.

Naturally, the majority of new users (not familiar with Miranda NG's update policy) will grab the latest stable release, and be faced with potentially "unnecessary" bugs.

The last stable release was issued over three months ago, and according to the road map, the next one is only 52% done.
How about issuing some quick point releases for the stable branch every now and then?

[Vulpix]

I suppose it could be done. I mean, I've essentially been using the dev version of miranda since day1 and only once or twice encountered some issues which I was able to recover from using a backup, so if tested, something like a week-old dev version could be released as stable.

I would think this is up to (mostly) watcher as he handles the releases and packaging/compilation.

Paging @watcher :p

[watcher]

Paging @watcher :p

No - I do not decide by myself when new stable release is going to happen. It happens when all the features of new build are ready and most critical and not so critical bugs are fixed. We sacrificed backwards compatibility for greater good (massive development in many areas). So nowdays the answer is - use dev builds if you want new fixes or wait for a new stable build, i can't change much about this.

[Robyer]

Well usually we can at least backport the critical fixes of protocols (like not being able to login) to stable - like we did a few times already for Facebook plugin. But it's not possible when there are bigger changes (like massively rewrited MSN protocol).