alamb commented on issue #16622: URL: https://github.com/apache/datafusion/issues/16622#issuecomment-5645699726
I have been thinking about this issue a lot as I see it causing pain downstream (and we are increasingly hitting it at Influx) I propose we try the "LTS" model, following Ubuntu and others who have innovated here. Specifically this would work like: 1. Declare some version (e.g. DataFusion 60) as "LTS" for 6 months. 2. Continue releasing new major DataFusion versions as we do now, at the existing cadence of 6-8 weeks 3. Release minor or patch releases from the LTS branch every month 4. Backport (via automation and agent assistance) PRs from main to the LTS branch, that do not include breaking changes 5. After 6 months, declare a new version as LTS (e.g DataFusion 65) and likely stop releasing as quickly for the previous LTS I imagine what would happen in the third-party ecosystem (e.g. datafusion-distributed) would increasingly also offer a "LTS" version (pinned to the DataFusion LTS version) as well as a most recent version (effectively what they do now) Benefits: * This is strictly additive to the current process and puts no additional burden on people implementing features / working on main (we just keep doing what we are doing there) * Users would pick if they value API stability / ease of integration or access to the latest and greatest features. * Most of the backporting can be automated now, even identifying which PRs to backport is more automatable Cons: * Extra release work to manage the LTS releases / do the backporting I am actually happy to help invest in getting this process working (running releases, doing some coordination) of we think this is valuable and other people would help -- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
