=head2 Subversions
-In addition, there may be "developer" sub-versions available. These
-are not official releases. They may contain unstable experimental
-features, and are subject to rapid change. Such developer
-sub-versions are numbered with sub-version numbers. For example,
-version 5.003_04 is the 4'th developer version built on top of
-5.003. It might include the _01, _02, and _03 changes, but it
-also might not. Sub-versions are allowed to be subversive. (But see
-the next section for recent changes.)
+In addition, there usually are sub-versions available. Sub-versions
+are numbered with sub-version numbers. For example, version 5.003_04
+is the 4'th developer version built on top of 5.003. It might include
+the _01, _02, and _03 changes, but it also might not. Sub-versions are
+allowed to be subversive. (But see the next section for recent
+changes.)
These sub-versions can also be used as floating point numbers, so
you can do things such as
use 5.003_03; # the "_" is optional
Sub-versions produced by the members of perl5-porters are usually
-available on CPAN in the F<src/5.0/unsupported> directory.
+available on CPAN in the F<src/5.0/maint> and F<src/5.0/devel>
+directories.
=head2 Maintenance and Development Subversions
-As an experiment, starting with version 5.004, subversions _01 through
-_49 will be reserved for bug-fix maintenance releases, and subversions
-_50 through _99 will be available for unstable development versions.
+Starting with version 5.004, subversions _01 through _49 is reserved
+for bug-fix maintenance releases, and subversions _50 through _99 for
+unstable development versions.
The separate bug-fix track is being established to allow us an easy
way to distribute important bug fixes without waiting for the
developers to untangle all the other problems in the current
-developer's release.
+developer's release. The first rule of maintenance work is "First, do
+no harm."
Trial releases of bug-fix maintenance releases are announced on
perl5-porters. Trial releases use the new subversion number (to avoid
testers installing it over the previous release) and include a 'local
-patch' entry in patchlevel.h.
+patch' entry in patchlevel.h. The distribution file contains the
+string C<MAINT_TRIAL> to make clear that the file is not meant for
+public consumption.
+
+In general, the names of official distribution files for the public
+always match the regular expression
+
+ ^perl5\.\d{3}(_[0-4]\d)?\.tar\.gz$
+
+Developer releases always match
-Watch for announcements of maintenance subversions in
-comp.lang.perl.announce.
+ ^perl5\.\d{3}(_[5-9]\d)?\.tar\.gz$
-The first rule of maintenance work is "First, do no harm."
+And the trial versions for a new maintainance release match
+
+ ^perl5\.\d{3}(_[0-4]\d)-MAINT_TRIAL_\d+\.tar\.gz$
+
+In the past it has been observed that pumkings tend to invent new
+naming conventions on the fly. If you are a pumpking, before you
+invent a new name for any of the three types of perl distributions,
+please inform the guys from the CPAN who are doing indexing and
+provide the trees of symlinks and the like. They will have to know
+I<in advance> what you decide.
=head2 Why such a complicated scheme?
back into the main distribution, but various parts of the perl
Configure/build/install process still assume src='.'.
+=item Directory for vendor-supplied modules?
+
+If a vendor supplies perl, but wants to leave $siteperl and $sitearch
+for the local user to use, where should the vendor put vendor-supplied
+modules (such as Tk.so)? If the vendor puts them in the default $archlib,
+then they need to be updated each time the perl version is updated.
+Perhaps we need a set of libries $vendorlib and $vendorarch that
+track $apiversion (like the $sitexxx directories do) rather than just
+$version (like the main perl directory).
+
+An alternative (and perhaps even better) plan might be for the vendor
+to select non-default $privlib and $archlib directories, perhaps using
+$apiversion instead of $version (or even just /usr/lib/perl5 with no
+version stuff at all), and put modules into those directories (with perl
+Makefile.PL INSTALLDIRS=perl). This would be fine unless the vendor
+wanted to support different versions of perl installed at the same time.
+(How many vendors *really* want to do that?)
+
+=item Separate directories for Perl-supplied and add-on man pages
+
+Man pages supplied with the perl distribution proper ought to go in
+an appropriate man directory. Perhaps man pages supplied with add-on
+modules ought to (at least optionally) go into a $siteman[1-9] directory.
+For example, suppose that $privlib is /usr/lib/perl5 and $man1dir
+is /usr/man/man1. Also, suppose $sitelib is /usr/local/lib/perl5.
+In this situation, it might make sense for man pages to go into
+/usr/local/lib/man/man1.
+
=item Hint file fixes
Various hint files work around Configure problems. We ought to fix
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff