Fixing releases

After you make an official release, sometimes you discover a bug that you want to immediately fix. Maybe you forgot to add the CVS release tag to all of the files in your project before you made the release node, and now the downloadable packaging is missing some files. Or perhaps, a last-minute change to an SQL query ended up breaking your module's support for PostgreSQL, but you didn't test that before you made the release. Maintainers might find themselves wishing they could move the CVS tag for their release, and start generating new packages from the new revisions of the affected files, but retain the same version number.

However, modifying a release after it exists is intentionally prevented by the release system. Once you release something, it's out in public and you can not take it back. Even if it just went out on the web, someone might have already downloaded it, or checked it out from CVS, and deployed it. It would be too confusing if once something was released, its contents might change without having a new unique version number. That's a large part of what made the old release "system" so difficult and confusing.

Once you make a release the only way to fix a problem is to make a new release that includes the fix.

Of course, users of your contribution will start to get annoyed if a new official release comes out every day for minor fixes, or whenever a major new release comes out, another release follows hours or days later, which actually works. So, it's always a good idea to test an official release as thoroughly as possible before you create the release node and publish your release to the world. Maintainers should also consider making "beta" releases of their modules, if they want more input and testing from their community of users. Normally, maintainers should "batch" bug fixes in groups, and only make another official release once enough smaller things, or a few big things, are fixed. However, certain critical bugs and any security vulnerabilities warrant a new official release immediately, even if the last official release was a day (or potentially even hours) before.