[Pkg-octave-devel] [lukas.reichlin.lists at gmail.com: Re: Debian's control-2.4.1 and quaternion-2.0.2 (Was Re: [OctDev] image 2.0.0 released)]

[Rafael Laboissiere]

Lukas Reichlin, upstream author of control and quaternion, asked me why 
the last versions of these packages (2.4.1 and 2.0.2, respectively) are 
not in testing.  I explained to him the mechanism of the Debian freeze 
and told him that exceptions for new upstream releases can be made if 
there are RC bugs against the version in testing.

I said to Lukas that I could file an RC bug report, provided that he list 
the bugs present in the current versions in testing that would make them 
unsuitable for release.  He then sent the message below to me, which I am 
forwarding to your with his autorization.

Please, tell me what you think.

Rafael

----- Forwarded message from Lukas Reichlin <lukas.reichlin.lists at gmail.com> -----

From: Lukas Reichlin <lukas.reichlin.lists at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: Debian's control-2.4.1 and quaternion-2.0.2 (Was Re: [OctDev] image 2.0.0 released) 
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:58:54 +0100 
To: Rafael Laboissiere <rafael at laboissiere.net> 
Message-Id: <4CE54E64-C79A-46DA-A44E-92C2B18B1BA5 at gmail.com>

On 14.11.2012, at 16:04, Rafael Laboissiere <rafael at laboissiere.net> wrote:

> * Lukas Reichlin <lukas.reichlin.lists at gmail.com> [2012-11-14 13:32]:
>>
>> control news: http://sourceforge.net/p/octave/code/11425/tree/trunk/octave-forge/main/control/NEWS

 ** feedback
      Fixed an argument check which caused false positive error messages.
      It was a copy-paste mistake affecting non-square systems.
      (Thanks to Tony Olivo)

 ** sensitivity
      Fixed a problem where an error was raised about an undefined function
      "issiso".

 ** impulse, initial, lsim, step
      These time response functions now error out correctly when the user tries to
      plot multiple systems in one window with mismatching numbers of inputs and
      outputs.  The problem was caused by Octave's built-in function "size_equal"
      which gave false positives for LTI objects.  The problem is solved by
      overloading the built-in function with a new LTI method "size_equal".

>>
>> quaternion news: http://sourceforge.net/p/octave/code/11425/tree/trunk/octave-forge/main/quaternion/NEWS

 ** eq
      -- Fix typo bug which gave false positives for the k-component.
      -- Avoid error if arguments are non-conformant.

This means that  q1 == q2  could give false results. I feel a bit sheepish about that :-)

>>
>> Note that in "stable", control-1.0.11 does not work properly with octave 3.6.2
>
> Ok, thanks.  Let me ask again the crucial question: which are the bugs 
> in control-2.3.52 and quaternion-2.0.0 that would make those versions 
> unsuitable for release and that are fixed in control-2.4.1 and 
> quaternion-2.0.2?  Please, give me an answer.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rafael

Besides the fixes listed above, there are various enhancements which are 
a big plus for the users, e.g. control supports system identification, 
multisystem plots and there are cleanup efforts under the hood. 
quaternion supports the inversion of quaternion matrices.

Best regards,

Lukas

----- End forwarded message -----