[Squeakfoundation]3.4 release

[Ian Piumarta]

Hi Doug/Goran/all,

> > This should include a Windows VM, a Mac (Carbon) VM, and the sources 
> > (?) for the Unix VM

I am going to upload all the source to SF any day now.  (Really.  I
promise.  It's been on the todo list for a year.)

> > and possibly at least one pre-built Unix VM.  
> > (Which one(s)?  Probably Linux at least.)

I can do Linux (ppc/x86) and FreeBSD (x86) with no more hassle than typing
`make' in a few different places.

> > - Should we wait a few days between steps 1 and 2?  This would let 
> > people test the final image a bit just to make sure there wasn't some 
> > major problem, and maybe check out any final cosmetic tweaks.  Also, it 
> > would give the VM maintainers a few days to get their VMs ready.  But 
> > perhaps this isn't necessary... maybe we should make sure the VMs are 
> > ready before we declare 3.4 final.  (Certainly they should be almost 
> > ready anyway.)
> 
> Hmmm. The best would probably be to give the port maintainers a chance
> to produce and verify new VMs. Otherwise we may end up with a port
> needing some tweak to the image to work but the image was just marked
> final... Ooops.
> 
> What do you say, port guys? (Tim, Ian, John, Andreas)

Judging by the (lack of) recent commit activity I suspect the Mac/Win VMs
are pretty stable.  For Unix though it sounds like a safer plan to me,
especially if a few people volunteer to test the VMs thoroughly.  (In
addition to several minor fixes that I've collected over the last couple
of months there's a bunch of new FFI support code.  OTOH, there's
absolutely no obligation at all to pull this new code into the VM right
now.  We could be content with the few minor fixes and leave the rest for
the ongoing major overhaul of the Unix code, which is due out in a week or
two and is _huge_.  Given the intention to announce things in public
forums, a solid VM seems preferable to a much more capable -- but far less
tested -- one.)

Speaking of which (which we were, even if it wasn't evident) is there
anything in the 3.4 image w.r.t. VMM, Interpreter, et al., which is
different to what's in a fully-updated TeaSqueak/Croquet image?  I'm
currently using the latter since it has BitBlt additions that aren't in
3.4 (or at least they weren't the last time I looked).

> > - Which Unix VMs should be available immediately upon the release of 
> > 3.4?  Sources?  A Linux VM?  Debian and/or RPMs?  Obviously we don't 
> 
> Personally I think a source release from Ian is enough, as long as Ian
> has verified that the most popular *nix VM works. That would be Linux.

I have debian installed on both ppc and x86 machines, so I could easily
build .rpms and .debs for these two architectures.  I've never tried
building a FreeBSD package so I don't know if it would be feasible or not
to put one together in short order.  (As an irrelevant data point, I'm
developing/maintaining the Unix support code almost exclusively under
Mac OS X these days.)

Regards,

Ian