GHC 7.8.3 release

[Simon Marlow]

On 27/05/14 09:06, Austin Seipp wrote:
> PPS: This might also impact the 7.10 schedule, but last Simon and I
> talked, we thought perhaps shooting for ICFP this time (and actually
> hitting it) was a good plan. So I'd estimate on that a 7.8.4 might
> happen a few months from now, after summer.

FWIW, I think doing 7.10 in October is way too soon.  Major releases 
create a large distributed effort for package maintainers and users, and 
there are other knock-on effects, so we shouldn't do them too often.  A 
lot of our users want stability, while many of them also want progress, 
and 12 months between major releases is the compromise we settled on.

The last major release slipped for various reasons, but I don't believe 
that means we should try to get back on track by having a short time 
between 7.8 and 7.10.  7.8 will be out of maintenance when it has only 
just made it into a platform release.

Anyway, that's my opinion.  Of course if everyone says they don't mind a 
7.10 in October then I withdraw my objection :-)

(as a data point, upgrading to 7.8 at work cost me three weeks, but 
we're probably a special case)

Cheers,
Simon