[x264-devel] x264 daily snapshots: what is the difference between the two available?

[Steven Walters]

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Bill Smith <b_smith at xdt.com> wrote:
> Steven Walters wrote:
>> for every commit spree, there is usually a set of bugfixes and a set
>> of 'enhancements'.
>>
>> the master/normal branch gets both the bugfixes and enhancements.
>> the stable branch gets only the bugfixes.
>>
>> the underlying logic here is that the enhancements will probably have
>> some bugs in them,
>> so the stable branch will have less bugs overall compared to the normal branch.
>
> Thanks for the explanation. So the stable branch is currently
> feature-frozen since the 21st of Feb?
> Does that mean that the stable branch will lead to an official release
> eventually, or will you simply re-branch a new stable branch off the
> master branch at regular or irregular intervals in the future?

no, not quite, i didn't fully explain this well enough.
the stable branch generally moves when master does, this is easier
explained with an example:

right now master is at revision 1947, stable is at 1943.
let's say that the next commit spree has 5 bugfix commits and 7
enhancement commits (these are random numbers and have no bearing on
what could actually happen).

master will first take the 5 bugfix commits, becoming 1952.
stable is then moved to the same revision as master (1952).
master then takes the 7 enhancement commits, becoming 1959.

stable takes enhancement commits that were from the previous commit
spree and only the bugfix commits from the current spree.

master takes the "bleeding edge with bugs being likely" approach,
where stable is more "let's hold off on the new stuff for a bit longer."

so back to the original question, stable is not feature frozen,
it just doesn't have the newest features that are available in master.

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