Plans for release candidate 2 and beyond



OK, more has happened since release candidate 1 than I anticipated. In
particular, much has been accomplished on the Windows and Xmaxima
fronts. Although this is a still only a development release, I now think
it is in everyone's best interest that we release windows binaries with
or soon after the official 5.9.0 release. It should at the very least
help avoid a deluge of "how do I get this thing to build under windows?"
questions. As long as we are at it, I've decided to finish the Linux
rpms at the same time.

Here is what I think the criteria should be for release candidate 2:

1) Show-stopping bugs in rc1 fixed.
        -Done, or nearly so. The worrying thing lately is with the
socket problems recently observed under windows. I would really like to
hear if the same problem appears using clisp. Is anyone doing windows
builds with clisp?

2) Camm's alternative gcl linking procedure added.
        -Mostly done. Needs more (some!) testing.

3) Binary packages for RedHat Linux (and other rpm-based distributions)
and Windows.
        -Linux: Nearly done. (Sample packages are building as I speak.)
        -Windows: Great progress has been made. I hope we will have
solid packages soon.

4) Xmaxima stabilized.
        -I'm told we are very close. The problem with spaces is not yet
fixed. I hope it will be, but I don't think it should be a showstopper
if it drags on much longer.

Any thoughts on these criteria will be appreciated.

--Jim