[Buildroot] [PATCH 1/3] package/nodejs: Add version 5.2.0

[Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>]

Thomas, All,

On 2015-12-16 14:41 +0100, Thomas Petazzoni spake thusly:
> On Wed, 16 Dec 2015 11:26:29 +0000, Vicente Olivert Riera wrote:
> > >> So, I think we have a few options here:
> > >>
> > >>  1) keep all the three existing versions, add 5.2
> > >>  2) keep 0.10 and 0.12, replace 4.2 with 5.2
> > >>  3) keep 0.10, ditch 0.12, replace 4.2 with 5.2
> > >>  4) dith 0.10 and 0.12, replace 4.2 with 5.2
> > >>
> > >> I would lean toward either 2 or 3.
> > >>
> > >> 3 is IMHO the best solution: 5.2 is the best choice when all the
> > >> conditions are met; 0.10 is the fallback, maybe not the optimum in
> > >> case 0.12 would have fit, but since that's a fallback I don't think
> > >> it matters much...
> > >>
> > > 
> > > As 4.x is a LTS release I would not drop it for the 5.x release.
> > > 
> > > I would keep all the three version we have - they are all still
> > > maintained and v0.12 and v4 are both even LTS releases.
> > > 
> > > New versions are often not compatible with older versions of Node.js -
> > > it's similiar to Lua.
> > > 
> > > So I would lean toward 1.
> > 
> > I agree with you. Dropping a LTS version doesn't look good to me. We
> > could do it when it's not maintained anymore. Right now I vote for
> > keeping the three versions we already have plus adding the 5.2.0 because
> > is the new stable: option 1.
> 
> I am personally not very happy with option (1). Keeping gazillions of
> versions means that we have potentially to test all those options. And
> the random testing done by the autobuilders does not work to randomize
> "choice" options, i.e we will never test the non-default versions.

Not completey true, since the higher versions ahve dependencies not
always fulfilled (armv6+, gcc >= 4.8...) so, as we do randomize the CPU
from time to time, we would eventually have all versions being built.

But I do agree that this is not the best situation. I would prefer if we
could find a solution that does not imply having so many versions. I
deeply believe that we should limit ourselves to just having 0.10.x and
5.2.x .

> What is the motivation for keeping all those versions around? While I
> can understand that keeping 0.10.x around to have a fallback solution
> for ARMv5 platform is desired, I don't understand why we would keep
> 0.12.x and 4.2.x.
> 
> The fact that 0.12.x and 4.2.x are still maintained upstream as LTS
> versions is completely irrelevant. There are other projects that may
> maintain older branches as LTS, and still we don't support all the
> possible maintained versions.

Totally agreed. LTS status of uostream versions does not mean we should
have all of them.

> Are there incompatibilities between 0.12.x, 4.2.x and 5.2.x that
> prevent a user from easily upgrading?

Are all those versions API/ABI/whatevrer incompatible with each others?
Or is it possible to narrow down the set of versions?

I.e. if 4.2.x and 5.2.x are compatible, there is no reason to keep
4.2.x, since 5.2.x is enough and does not have requirements more
stringents than 4.2.x. And so on...

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN, in the train...

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