[dmd-beta] Changes to v2.066.0

[Marco Leise via dmd-beta]

Am 06.09.2014, 10:24 Uhr, schrieb Takeshi Enomoto via dmd-beta  
<dmd-beta at puremagic.com>:

> Dear DMD developers,
>
> Thank you for developing DMD.
> I maintain dmd and related packages of MacPorts.
>
> We noticed a few updates to v2.066.0 of dmd, druntime and phobos
> without changing their tags in the git repository (releases).
>
> <https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/releases>
>
> We call such updates `stealth updates'.
> The checksums are verified to make sure that the correct source code
> have been downloaded by MacPorts' port command.
> The checksums are written in the package description file, called  
> Portfile.
> We need to special treatment for stealth updates.
>
> <https://trac.macports.org/wiki/PortfileRecipes#stealth-updates>
>
> From the viewpoint of package maintainer,
> stealth updates are not a good idea.
> I understand that the changes are for bug fixes or enhancement.
> But if so a new version number (e.g. v2.066.1 or v2.066.0.1)
> or a tag should be given to the commit.
>
> I appreciate if you discussed my suggestion among the developers and
> considered adopting it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Takeshi

Hello Takeshi,

I am a package maintainer for Gentoo so I know the issue from both closed  
and open source projects, like Google Earth or OpenXCom, which happened to  
modify their uploaded releases. Did this also happen to the "official"  
all-systems .zip in the download section of dlang.org? That's the one I  
use, because D's inventors have expressed the wish to keep track of the  
download count to roughly estimate the user base, which they can't with  
GitHub I think.
Otherwise I think it is understood that bug fix releases should receive an  
incremented version number as it happened in the past.
And to add to your concerns: Once a user (e.g. we package maintainers)  
have downloaded a source package and the checksums got calculated, there  
is no system that periodically checks if the source on the internet didn't  
change in the mean time. As a result package maintainers learn about that  
by people who try the new package for the first time and find the package  
manager complaining about incorrect checksums.
I'm going to check my dmd package now as well, just to be sure.  
Fortunately both MacPorts and the ebuild system allow revisions  
independently of the original software's version number, so it is easy to  
bump that for a changed source bundle. Thanks for the hint!

Best regards,
Marco