Please tag an official v13.0.1, or v13.0.1-rc1, or something

[parker-research]

The current v13 is much better and includes significant improvements above the latest official release (v12). I want my research group to be able to use a version of this tool with a well-known tag (so that it can be referenced in communication, papers, etc.) which is later than the v12 release, but that is not just "whatever's in main that day".

The release doesn't have to be the most stable version around (hence the v13.0.1-rc1 proposal), but will allow users to discuss and reference a specific version of the software which is on a path towards release.

[caryr]

Yes, we have been planning a release for some time (see #1058), but most of us work at very demanding jobs during the day so we have not had much time available for Icarus or a new release for a few years. Maybe we should look at using development snapshots that can be done more regularly. We try to set a very high bar for actual releases, but a snapshot can be less stringent in the requirements.

[parker-research]

Makes sense, and I appreciate all the effort of the development team. I don't mean to sound demanding.

I maintain that snapshot/development preview/other releases would be hugely beneficial.

No release will be perfect, but the amount of changes-per-release seems way, way higher than the amount of changes between release of most open source software projects. At the very least, I think this project would benefit from minor releases (e.g., v12.1, v12.2, v13.1, v13.2, etc.) in general.

[Kreijstal]

probably minor releases would be the way to go

[martinwhitaker]

Minor releases would require someone to spend the time back-porting bug fixes to the stable branch. I used to do that as a matter of course for any bugs I fixed, but the changes to the test suite mean it is no longer a simple process, so I've given that up.

[DeflateAwning]

You could just not do backports? Require that people go to the latest release for all bug fixes. This is the only way I've seen community-driven open source projects do it.

[Kreijstal]

shouldn't distro mantainers do backports tho? maybe the devs of icarus are also distro mantainers or something