I think it’d be nice to see a list of all patches since each major release, the items each patch addresses and a link to download them.
Patches are not generically available because they have only gone through unit testing and testing of a particular issue. They have not gone through a full QA cycle.
A list of bugs fixed in the latest patch can be found in the Documentation forum: 6.5.2 Readme Patch Thread or http://forum.percussion.com/showthread.php?t=560
If encountering an issue addressed in the latest patch, please email Support requesting the patch and identify which issue you are encountering.
Surely you would not release a patch unless it has been through the QA process? Once it has you could then make them generally available.
One way to unsure that people’s support contracts are up-to-date is launch the patches through this forum and only allow patch thread access if they have a valid licence?
I think the key word before was “full” as in “full QA cycle.” Patches are built to get customers through immediate problems as fast as possible. Thus, the patch is run through a QA environment that matches the customer situation - yes that means the OS and DBMS in use, but more importantly, the specifics of that customer implementation.
The QA cycle for the general population is much longer, because it’s not only the different environments, but the many variations on implementations and also backwards compatibility we have to maintain. Historically, we have rolled patches together into a “maintenance build” on a standard cycle, which then goes through that full QA cycle and becomes “generally available” to all - indicated by the third number, for example, 6.5.2 vs. 6.5.1 or 6.5.0.
I know in the future we are looking at a somewhat different model, where we do not roll patches together into maintenance builds, and instead just run them through the full QA cycle independently. That will probably be the norm on the 6.6 and later releases. The reason we’re able to do this is that with each release the variations in implementations in the installed base are much narrower and more standardized. This makes it easier to alert any of the remaining “outliers” of patches that might not be suitable for their style of implementation, while getting the vast majority more quickly up to date.
We are glad that we can now see lists of patches such as http://forum.percussion.com/showthread.php?t=560
Hi Vern,
Ok I get what you mean. I think it is definately a better model to release and QA the patches seperately as I think there are several very important patches that come out and you would not want to wait for the next maintenance build.
Thanks
Georgina