[SciPy-dev] NumPy 1.0.3.x and SciPy 0.5.2.x (Fernando Perez)

[Joe Harrington]

As someone who is teaching a new course in numpy starting tomorrow, I
want to echo Fernando's email, and add a quick request.  I'll take the
risk that the same thing was decided a different way at the
conference, but if it was, please just let me and the other list
readers know.

First, a major thanks to everyone who works on making numpy and scipy
a turn-key install.  Though there is a ways yet to go, things have
come a long way.  Perhaps the most pleasing thing for me as an early
advocate has been the rise in the percentage of list traffic devoted
to packaging and releasing for the masses.  I would very much like to
see the "use SVN" instruction banished forever from the download page.
But, the goal of a no-brainer install for Mac, PC, and the major Linux
flavors does not seem unachievable anymore, and of course we're there
for many of the Linux systems.

My request is in the direction of transparency on the release cycle.
I know the release of NumPy 1.0.3.1 and SciPy 0.5.2.1 is imminent, and
I look forward to it very much.  How does it go from a tarball to,
say, a .deb in the Ubuntu repo?  How long does it take for that
process and who does it?  How much of that is in "our" control and how
much of it is in the OS vendor's/distro's control?

I would favor this being part of a "Release Status" page linked off
the Download page.  The top item would be a chart showing the release
steps across the top and the names of the distros we build for down
the side.  There would be one such chart for each active release of
numpy and of scipy.  They would contain green checks for done items, a
black X for not doing, a green dash for not necessary, a red
exclamation point for a problem, etc.  Below that, there would be a
short description of how a release goes from tarball to OS packages.
The page should also include the names of people or lists to which to
send questions like the inevitable "Version XXX of YYY has been out
for weeks now, when will I be able to get it with my OS's installer?"
This would also act as a way to connect potential helpers with
problems to solve on the release side of the house.

I'd make it and populate it, in the wiki way, except I have
essentially none of the necessary information for the page.  So, I'll
leave it at that and hope someone who does takes interest.  Either way,
if someone could let us know what to expect in terms of the new releases
getting out to the repos, that would be greatly appreciated, even if
it's just a rough guide.

Thanks again for all the hard work on packaging!

--jh--
Prof. Joseph Harrington
Department of Physics
MAP 420
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32816-2385
(407) 823-3416 voice
(407) 823-5112 fax
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