forum.freeciv.org

As for the continuing requests to add more stuff to freeciv-3.1.

- Development of freeciv-3.1 started 1.1.2017
- With the current feature set we hopefully can release 3.1.0 in early 2024.
- That already means that some features have been in there for 7 years before being released

We really should not postpone it further for including more such features than can be left to freeciv-3.2!

This is the same message I've now been repeating in freeciv-dev for about 18 months (for freeciv-3.1), when we we're approaching making S3_1 release branch.
In general, I think it was freeciv-2.2 time when I first started complaining about development stuff going to release branches, and not only to the development branch, postponing the release.

As for freeciv-3.2, and with the same vein, I've been talking for making it a goal that major releases would come out every two years. So things now left out from 3.1, should come out in 3.2 in a time a lot shorter than 7 years. Assuming of course that someone has the energy to fight for releasing-3.2 (-> postponing some then-new stuff to freeciv-3.3) instead of letting it to grow bigger and bigger.

That doesn't mean that new features couldn't get in at all. Quite the opposite; now is the time to get freeciv-3.2 features to the (master) development branch, before it turns to freeciv-3.3 development branch (presumably early 2023)

cazfi wrote:In general, I think it was freeciv-2.2 time when I first started complaining about development stuff going to release branches, and not only to the development branch, postponing the release.

If all this came out as a bit of a rant, the reason is in that after over a decade of often stressful fighting to stop such postponement of releases I'm not very happy when ever I hear someone referring to me as the reason of very long release cycles.

OTOH when someone is complaining that I'm postponing their features from the immediate next version, that's often true. It doesn't mean that I like it that it needs to be done. I just think that we should get releases out.

Going to rolling development with no releases at all could be a bit radical idea.

S3_1 formats have been in semi-freeze for well over a month now. The reason it has not gone to formal freeze yet is that need for some more changes in exact details have come up during the semi-freeze. There's likely one more Windows snapshot build made from S3_1 before the formal freeze, in case someone wants to do more testing at this point.

Freeciv-3.1 datafile formats have been formally frozen!

This means that any modpack created against tonight's nightly build, and compatible with it, will be compatible with all the future freeciv-3.1.x releases (except for the effect of any bugs, of course)

From https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/ticket/44506 : "Current commit count between S3_0 branching point (after which, master commits have been towards 3.1) and S3_1 HEAD is 5108."

That's a lot of changes.

S3_1-alpha4 has been released.

S3_1-alpha4 is the commit cb3e87d4cd5592bf3a0501ca218deee79d7d54d2 in freeciv git
Source tarballs: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... _1-alpha4/
Windows installers: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... _1-alpha4/
Crosser-based windows installers: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... _1-alpha4/

Highlights of changes since freeciv-3.0: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... ES-3.1.txt

What was expected to be the last network protocol change for freeciv-3.1, short of setting capstr (identifier for server/client to know the other party is compatible) to its final form, has been pushed in.

If no further issues raise during following short testing phase, freeciv-3.1 protocol will be frozen soon.

Please help in testing if you can. Nightly builds (tarballs, flatpaks, crosser based Windows installers) from the coming night will contain that latest change. I'm also building new snapshots of "normal" (mssy2) Windows Installers as soon as possible - likely have them still today.

Freeciv-3.1 network protocol has been frozen. Now on any new client/server builds will be compatible with eventual stable freeciv-3.1.0 server/client, as well as any later freeciv-3.1.x server/client.

With both datafile format and network protocol compatibility we can really call it freeciv-3.1 now on.

At task to go through freeciv-3.1 commit logs for constructing the NEWS and update to PEOPLE ( https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/ticket/44506 ) I reached the point where S3_1 was branched from the master development branch. Updated https://www.freeciv.org/wiki/People up to that point. Now all contributions to freeciv up to 5th of February 2021 should be listed (meaning there can still be people who have contributed almost two years ago and still not be listed, but at least it's no longer "six years ago")

Freeciv-3.1.0-alpha5

Source code: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... _1-alpha5/
Windows Installers: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... _1-alpha5/
Flatpaks: https://files.freeciv.org/packages/wind ... _1-alpha5/