AppImage
Creating "snapshot" releases for build reference consistency
I think for adoption purposes making snapshot releases would really help. These static snapshots could be made at regular intervals such as annually (such as a 2025 build) and reference the last commit under them so people know what is included.
The Continuous build would still be the focus and any issues with snapshots could be either added to the Continuous if not addressed or referred to the Continuous for fixing. If a snapshot has a critical bug then it can be updated (2025.1) Otherwise minor bugs in the snapshot can be ignored.
Here is testimony from the Apache Netbeans project who dropped support for AppImages, I have been advocating to bring it back: "A key concern is that NBPackage is set up to use appimagetool and the Codelerity build was using https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/tag/13 which is now marked (for good reason) obsolete and unsupported. The replacement tool and runtime currently only seem to be available as a continuous build rather than fixed releases - https://github.com/AppImage/appimagetool/releases/tag/continuous This is a non-starter at the moment - we're not building with a moving target - we need a defined release that we can point to and hash verify in the build."
I know maintaining an LTS would be extra effort but using "snapshots" implies there's no support but a stable reference point in history for projects to reference. Thanks for AppImages and for reading!
When I go back to them just for my information, this is 10 months old (not a problem) but marked as a pre-release. Is there any reason it is held back from being a full release? Especially since this is the only one listed.
Similarly to https://github.com/AppImage/type2-runtime/issues/140, it would improve even by just creating a release on new build instead of overwriting the latest. Current status quo exposes to supply-chain attacks.
