CP866 and 1.0.0 [was: make check passes in Solaris 10 x86]

[David Relson]

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:00:03 +0100
Matthias Andree wrote:

> Matthias Andree <matthias.andree at gmx.de> writes:
> 
> > It'll currently just walk along your $PATH, trying
> > i386-sun-solaris2.10-ar and ar. The relevant macro is, as David stated,
> > AC_CHECK_TOOL, and we might catch the "not found" case and abort with
> > error.
> 
> This is what I have committed to CVS. If ar is not in PATH, configure
> aborts and asks the user to fix PATH.
> 
> 
> During testing, I found another problem (test FAILures), on an older
> Solaris version that does not support UTF-8. (I believe this is NOT
> specific to Solaris, but hits every system that doesn't support
> UTF-8). We need another configure.ac test that disables Unicode on these
> computers, and we also need to print "unicode enabled/disabled at
> compile time" information in bogofilter -V.
> 
> 
> Finally, do we want to ship CP866 special case code? I'd rather see this
> removed before 1.0.0 if possible, and everything tested in a 0.96.7
> release.

Matthias,

Does it never end?  We get to the end of an agreed upon test period and
you suggest another change, which means restarting the release timer.

In August I was ready to celebrate bogofilter's third birthday with the
1.0 release, but you wanted to add reservations and promised it for
right after your Taiwan trip.  We adjusted the release schedule and
agreed on early November, which became mid November, and then late
November.  A 0.96.7 release would push the release into 2006.  

We can leave CP866 in.  It's part of the "non-unicode" package that
you're about to support with further configure.ac tests.  I suggest
that we add an FAQ entry like:

  Q: Why am I seeing a "can't find iconv" message while linking bogofilter?

  A: Evidently your system doesn't support Unicode.  Try building with
"./configure --disable-unicode"

Given bogofilter's current state and stability, I know that 1.0.0 will
be a good release.  Being realistic, I don't expect perfection.  We can
fix a detail, retest, fix the next detail, and repeat ad nauseaum.  I
expect 1.0.1 to appear within a week or two of the 1.0.0 release.  I
expect that "week or two" figure will be true even if we wait until
bogofilter is 4 or 5 or 6 years old -- such is life.

Enough already!  It's time to go ahead with 1.0.0. 

Regards,

David