[squid-dev] Squid-5 status update

[Amos Jeffries]

Hi all,

 So being January and fielding questions about when v5 will be released
I have taken a look at the state of trunk/HEAD/master code to see
whether or not there is enough change to be worth a new Squid series.

Right now things are looking close but not quite enough.


The details I am looking at right now:

 * 8 new functionality features. Either specifically named features
  that have their own release notes section, or a bunch of related
  UI setting changes that add together to be noteworthy.

  see <https://wiki.squid-cache.org/Squid-5> for the list as of today.

 Ideally what I look for is an arbitrary 10 features. So this is close
enough, but also has room to wait for more.


 * approx. 30k LOC unique to master/v5

Historically there have been around 100k per year. v4 was an oddity with
having to wait for compiler support and some major late-added features.

Higher LOC change tends to mean we have made a lot of progress on the
code polishing and features added actually are significant. If we let it
get too high before beta the expected bug count goes up likewise and
beta testing takes a lot longer.
 If the v3 past is a good indicator of future bug finds, then this 30k
LOC would indicate 8-12 months of beta ahead already.


 * the LOC changes appear to be roughly evenly split in this past two
years between v5 changes, v4 fixes.

This is quite a bit higher than previous cycles and a good indicator
that we are not really ready to stop working on those fixes and move on
to testing stability of the new v5 code.


 * ~6 weeks to accumulate changes sufficient to pass the arbitrary
watermark for new packaging to be worthwhile.

Ideally that series would be stable enough that it takes regularly 8
week turnarounds before focus could be switched to a new series.


These last two are the main reasons I have now to delay starting v5
beta. Next look in a few months to see if/how things have changed.

That said we are getting close, so please start considering what
features you want to finish off to get included.


Amos