[Tm4j-developers] Branching TM4J

[<xua...@ba...>]

Hello developers,

as I'd like to enhance TM4J with new features (which might imply
significant changes) and as I assume that there is a significant
userbase building on the last current release (which is TM4J 0.9.7 from
more than 2=C2=BD years ago), it is time to create a "stable" branch para=
llel
to the unstable branch. My understanding is as follows:

    * stable branch "TM4J_1_x":
          o Polishing goes on here.
          o Keep source-level compatibility, binary-level compatibility
            to TM4J 0.9.7.
          o Keep requirements-level compatibility to TM4J 0.9.7. (For
            example, do not require a new Java version.)
          o Fix bugs in a compatible way.
          o Get really stable.
          o Be comparably conservative.
    * unstable branch "MAIN":
          o Development goes on here.
          o No hard requirement to keep compatibility (although
            API-level compatibility should be kept as well as possible).
          o New requirements: Java 1.5
          o Fix bugs "the right way"=E2=84=A2.
          o No need to be stable.
          o Be innovative, not conservative.

Having said that, I hope that most of the current TM4J 0.9.7 users will
switch to the unstable branch in the long term, when the features of the
unstable branch at some day outweigh the risks and efforts attached to
switching.

As a little goodie, the rudimentary XTM 2.0 reading support goes into
both branches.

ciao,
Xu=C3=A2n.