rsyslog -devel packages are being removed soon

If you use rsyslog’s devel packages on your system, you will receive errors soon. Be sure to read the complete posting to avoid trouble!

As part of rsyslog’s new release schedule and version naming, devel releases will no longer be named according to the “normal” numbering scheme. This also means that the previous “devel” branches will disappear, as git master branch now is the always-current devel version.

Keep on your mind that we previously had a release cycle of 3 to 9 month for a new feature to appear in a stable version. That was because new feature releases were only done when a complete devel turnaround was done, and relatively many new features were added. For this reason, some people opted to run devel versions in production, and thus needed specific tarballs (and packages) for them.

With the new six week release cycle, we get new features rather quickly into the stable builds. So it usually should be no problem to wait for the next stable to use that recently-implemented new feature. As such, there is no need any longer for special devel releases, and thus no need for devel tarballs and packages.

Well… almost. One thing we would like to have is a “daily devel version”. The idea is that if the testbench runs are OK, a new tarball and a set of packages is generated automatically and posted to a special archive. In general, that archive should receive an update once a day. So people really interested in the [b]leading edge can simply install from that daily package archive — and report bugs quickly, so helping the development process. Unfortunately, time is precious and we don’t know when and if we can setup the required automation. Most probably not before January 2015, and how it works out then needs to be seen.

In the interim, we will begin to delete the -devel packages. The old -devel tarballs will remain available, at least for the time being. The problem with -devel packages is that folks may have set their system to use the -devel repro. If we would just keep it as is, those systems would never again receive any updates, neither security-releated nor others, simply because -devel versions no longer exist in the way they were. That would pose a potentially big security risk. As such, we will delete the -devel content, and begin to do so early next week. If you use the -devel packages, be sure to switch the v8-stable instead.