[Tinyos Core WG] Re: Files in release that were not in release-candidate

[Philip Levis]

On Nov 16, 2006, at 6:23 AM, Vlado Handziski wrote:

> OK, the merges are fine. I propose that we remove the files marked  
> below from current devel and make a new RPM. Can someone take down  
> the current RPM from the site?
>

Looking through the CVS, this is what I think happened. It's mostly  
my fault.

As changes were made to the HAA decomposition of a couple of  
subsystems, files that were in HEAD (which was the beta2) were  
removed from -devel.

When I first tagged -2-0-0-release, it was purely from -devel, so  
this worked fine.

As the deadline for cutting the release RPM approached, bug fixes and  
new code (e.g., tutorial apps) were checked into different branches:  
HEAD, -release, -devel. Some of this was with < 24 hours to go.

In an attempt to make sure I got all of the additions together in one  
branch, I merged the branches before cutting the RPM. This merge,  
however, brought over files that were in HEAD but no longer in -devel  
in addition to the changes that were committed to HEAD. The reason I  
didn't pick this up is because the inclusion of Id: tags in most  
files means that merges appear to touch every single file, even if  
there are no substantive changes (I think this is a good argument to  
remove auto-generated CVS identifiers).

Of course, it would have been good to test the RPM, but given the  
shortness of deadline and the degree of response I got from the first  
RPM testing (SPOTS, PLDI, IPSN, etc.), this seemed unlikely as a  
feasible approach.

2 lessons:
   1) We need to learn how to manage/use CVS branches better. (I'm  
glad I've since removed write permissions from HEAD.)
   2) When doing a release, there shouldn't be substantive checkins  
24 hours before it's due, even if they're perfect, merely because  
they introduction confusion in the state of the tree.

Phil