[Pkg-octave-devel] unstable snapshots

[John W. Eaton]

I intend to start making a series of "unstable" snapshots of Octave
that include the new sparse matrix code and which also have the
gnuplot parser stuff split out from the main Octave language parser.
It may be a while before this would be considered the "testing" or
"recommended" version of Octave.  The version number for the new
series of snapshots will start with 2.9.1 (I hope we are getting close
to being able to release something called Octave 3.0 sometime this
summer).

It would be useful to have Debian packages of the 2.9.x snapshots
because that generally means more people will try them and report
problems.  But I don't think any of the 2.9.x snapshots should migrate
to Debian testing until we declare a 2.9.x package as the
"recommended" Octave version.  Is there an easy way to keep 2.1.x as
the testing version?  There may be more snapshots in that series to
fix bugs before a 2.9.x snapshots can be declared "recommended".

OTOH, the sparse changes are relatively independent of the rest of
Octave and they are a new addition, not changes to existing code, so
maybe the only big concern is what might happen with the gnuplot
changes.  If so, then it might not be that long before we can call
2.9.x "recommended".

Also, if the numbering goes to 2.9.x, does it still make sense to have
the Debian package named octave2.1?  If it simplifies things, I could
also skip to 2.1.90 instead (it seems higly unlikely that we will need
another 23 bug-fixing snapshots before we can recommend a 2.1.90+
version).

Comments or suggestions?

Thanks,

jwe