Release 3.6.0

[blapie]

Hello,

We are aware that users have been waiting for release 3.6.0 to come out for a while now. Due to a limited access to actual machines we have been focusing on setting up sufficient test coverage based on emulation, fixing a few outstanding bugs and documentation.
It is likely the upcoming release will officially support a subset of the OS-es and compilers it used to claim support for, but should just work on most of them. More bug fixes will be available in the following minor releases.

We are now expecting to tag release 3.6.0 in a matter of weeks.

[blapie]

Hi!

As of last week we did not accept any more contributions for this release. Validation and out-of-the-box testing have been successfully performed. Therefore, I will tag the release 3.6 some time this week.

We are aware that there are still limitations in the range of features that are currently tested, and we made sure to document them on the README and issue #481. More releases should follow this year for which we plan to solve a few existing bugs, add more features and extend test coverage.

As always we encourage everyone to contribute, be it on the library, build system, or CI side - but also on code reviews. Many of the features and CI available in this release are attributed to external contributors. The library benefits greatly from these contributions, and we are very grateful for that!

[blapie]

Hi,
I just created the long overdue release 3.6 today. Please find a note for the newly tagged release here.
More frequent releases should follow this one.

[blapie]

@adamjstewart Are you the right person to contact for updating Spack with the new version of SLEEF?

@cdluminate Are you still responsible for packaging for Debian and Ubuntu PPA?

[blapie]

Right, I understand. I was suspecting some interactions with PyTorch.
Will send a PR when I have a minute. Thanks for the update!

[cdluminate]

@cdluminate Are you still responsible for packaging for Debian and Ubuntu PPA?

Yes for Debian. Ubuntu PPA is never covered by me.

[blapie]

@cdluminate Ok, thank you for confirming! Will update the info on the website accordingly.

[blapie]

@cdluminate I noticed that the test pipeline failed to compile on 3.6 https://ci.debian.net/packages/s/sleef/unstable/amd64/43343207/
That is likely due to a change in location for the test file. Can I help modify the test so it can run normally?

[cdluminate]

That error is fine for now. I'll fix it for the next upload. sleef 3.6.0 is currently in experimental. I do not plan to make a transition to unstable because pytorch 2.1.2 does not build against sleef 3.6.0 on amd64.

[xuhancn]

@blapie When you plan to resume the PR merge?

[blapie]

Hi! Unfortunately we have limited bandwidth and need to prioritise maintenance work. We needed to get the release out of the way first and therefore we've had limited time to review the more significant changes. We will be in touch as soon as possible for your PR.

[xuhancn]

Thanks for reply.

[xuhancn]

@blapie I suggest to release 3.6.1, since we fix a lot of bugs.

[blapie]

It is planned now. #538

[joanaxcruz]

Thank you for your suggestion Xu Han. We currently have no plans for a patch release this quarter, but we'll certainly give it some consideration. If we are able to, then we'll confirm the scope and timeframe as soon as we can.