Would choice of package version FieldWorks 8 or 9 be helpful?

[Mark S]

Hello,

I'd like to hear more voices on this.

Paratext on Linux lets users choose to install a `paratext-8.0` package or a `paratext-9.0` package. Users running `paratext-8.0` can keep using Paratext 8 until they are ready to install Paratext 9.

FieldWorks on Linux has always just published a 'latest-stable' package. So users with FieldWorks 8.3 get automatically upgraded to FieldWorks 9.0 when FieldWorks 9 is released as a stable package.

FieldWorks on Linux could be changed to use version-specific packages. When installing FieldWorks, you would need to specifically choose to install `fieldworks-8.3` or `fieldworks-9.0`. You would only potentially get bugfixes, but never new features.

`fieldworks-8.3` may receive updates from 8.3.12 to 8.3.13 to 8.3.14, but never to 9.0.0.

`fieldworks-9.0` may receive updates from 9.0.12 to 9.0.13 to 9.0.14, but never to 9.1.0 (unless maybe it could share data with FW 9.0 installations).

Now that FW 9.0 has been shipped as a stable release, and the FieldWorks development team is very small, there won't be any more FW 8.3 updates. So using `fieldworks-8.3` would still be possible, but it would be unlikely to ever receive a bug fix.

After FW 9.1 is released as stable, `fieldworks-9.0` would continue to be installable, but would not get bug fixes.

Users of `fieldworks-8.3` would need to initiate a new installation of `fieldworks-9.0`, and later `fieldworks-9.1`, to get new features.

A big win for this, of course, is that users could do it on their own timetable.

This would work differently than most other software installed in Ubuntu. For example, if I install Gimp or LibreOffice, I expect that over time it will get upgraded from version 5 to 6 to 7, without me needing to think about it or specifically ask for it (with the exception of needing to ask my computer to upgrade). That said, I don't expect it to have any negative impact on my stored data. Conversely, FieldWorks upgrades projects when they are opened in a new FW version, making the project incompatible with older FW versions, which can lead to difficulties when sharing projects with colleagues.

Would moving to version-specific packages like fieldworks-8.3 and fieldworks-9.0 be helpful to you, where you choose which version to install and when to upgrade?

Would it be more helpful to you if FieldWorks on Linux continued to be released as just 'fieldworks' and you were automatically upgraded from 8.3 to 9.0 to 9.1?

Are you indifferent?

Note that this does not mean both FW 8.3 and FW 9.0 would be simultaneously installable and that you could choose which you wanted to run on a given day. That would need to be a further change.

Thank you for any comments or insights you can provide.

Mark