[mythtv-users] Protocol version mismatch
Paul Bender
pebender at san.rr.com
Wed Sep 27 11:47:27 UTC 2006
Nowhere wrote:
> I was able to upgrage everything I needed to individually. Is this normal
> for a non-version changing upgrade?
If by "is this normal" you mean "is it normal to change the protocol
version", then the answer is yes and no. The purpose of the fixes branch
is to have a branch that is more stable than the trunk. Kind developers
backport fixes from the trunk to the fixes branch.
The goal is to make as few changes as possible in the fixes branch.
However, at some point, one is bound to run into a bug that requires a
protocol version change. At this point, the decision is between fix the
bug or keep the protocol version the same. As with any bug fix on a
stable branch, the developer decides whether a bug is severe enough to
justify the potential impact of the fix. Sometimes, as in this case, the
developer decided that it was worth it.
In some applications that communicate of a network, the major version
number of the application changes whenever there are protocol changes
that cause protocol incompatibility. However, while MythTV communicates
over the network, it does not follow this sometimes followed convention.
Isaac and other MythTV developers have stated that you must be running
the same MythTV code on all computers in your MythTV system. If you do
otherwise, then you are on your own. Since this is the rule for MythTV,
there is no need to tie the application version number to the protocol
version number.
More testing before a release can reduce the chance of this happening.
However, more testing delays the release and creates more work for the
developers. Since many people have integrated MythTV backends and
frontends or run the same Linux distribution on their MythTV backends
and frontends, keeping the versions in sync is usually not a problem.
Therefore, with respect to the protocol version stability, a longer test
cycle is not as necessary.
Personally, I delay upgrading my software (including Myth) until is has
been out for a little while. No matter how much testing is done, once
software is release there will be many more testers (I mean users). Once
the new set of testers has used the software for awhile and the first
set of bug fixes is released, I figure the chances of me having a
problem are with the upgrade is greatly reduced. This applies to both
proprietary and open source software.
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