I think most OSX users that want the latest ver use Boxer or the Dominus build.

What is "normal" people? Do you mean apps from the Apple store? Can GPL software even be offered there?

I didn't think it was that hard to install a .dmg file but I haven't dealt with an OSX machine for a couple of years.

Hasn't been 5 years yet. 😉

The SVN releases are the same as the next official release except for the new features.

Well, "normal" people would be me 😀 Eg, I came to dosbox.com looking for the latest version and only found 0.74. I'd dare say I even took it a few steps beyond normal by visiting the forums (which I used to be active on many years ago) and browsing around here for a while, and eventually the wiki, and still haven't stumbled across something that seems like a "generally stable" vanilla build for Mac. (This is the first I've heard of Boxer or Dominus.) Even for the Windows SVN builds I found, as someone who doesn't follow the project closely I don't know if the latest SVN code is in flux / undergoing a huge refactoring / etc ... I have no idea what to expect from rXXXX. Ideally, releases would be made when devs are in between large changes.

I think my situation is likely to be the general case - users just want something new-ish that probably works, ideally on the "Downloads" page 😀. (And "newish" is especially important on mac, as Apple doesn't bother too much with maintaining backwards compatibility.)

Just curious why the official builds stopped flowing and throwing out an offer.

Yeah, on your link above, find "Dominus" - this is a very good working recent port to OS X.

http://www.boxerapp.com hosts another port to OS X, improved.

C'mon... You found the SVN build page and still think it's hard to find a new built of Dosbox' SVN?
http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/SVN_Builds my OS X built is the second plain vanilla build listed there.

You just need to download my dmg and you have the latest build, working for OS X from 10.4 up to 10.10.

Why there is no official build? Well, releases are not SVN builds and mostly need more work for polish. It's why you get releases of software and not always alpha/beta/ or even code snapshots of other software...
There probably should have been a new version of Dosbox for a while now, but development slowed down and there were plans for a new version that haven't materialized yet.

If you take my build you get it from the same person who did the last official Dosbox version for os x (0.74-1).

Dominus wrote:

C'mon... You found the SVN build page and still think it's hard to find a new built of Dosbox' SVN?

Actually, yes. Many small projects have wiki's which are long, long out of date and no longer accurate. The first link on that page says it's from 2013, and some builds are as old as 2004 (with no date on your link), so I didn't feel confident that I was looking at current information. Perhaps that page could be cleaned up to more clearly indicate where current SVN builds can be found vs where some SVN builds used to be found vs some cool builds that someone made back in 2004.

But also, as I mentioned before, even if I do find the latest SVN build, I don't know what I'm getting with "rXXXX". The build might crash on launch, or even have some known (to the devs) issue where it deletes files. I have no idea what the status is. So that brings me back to my point -- I'm looking for an official release / wondering if there's anything I can do to help get one out the door.

Dominus wrote:

If you take my build you get it from the same person who did the last official Dosbox version for os x (0.74-1).

Thanks for that 😁 I thought perhaps releases weren't being made for lack of interest in building for all the platforms, but it sounds like there are enough enthusiasts out there covering that.

1. Wiki pages need to be maintained - especially for stuff that changes a lot, entering dates is not perfect. Mostly it helps clicking on stuff and see what dates it will report.
2. my build has the following note: "Automatically updated on changes to SVN." - so that should have given a clue.
3. rxxxx is the revision number of the code in SVN. Each time a dev commits new code, the revision number increases. Currently it's revision 3901. look at https://sourceforge.net/p/dosbox/code-0/3901/log/?path= to learn what the revisions changed.

But also, as I mentioned before, even if I do find the latest SVN build, I don't know what I'm getting with "rXXXX". The build might crash on launch, or even have some known (to the devs) issue where it deletes files. I have no idea what the status is.

Just get the newest revision you can find. In your case, grab my built. In Windows users case, grab the emucr one.
So far, I know of no revision that crashes on launch or deletes files.

So that brings me back to my point -- I'm looking for an official release / wondering if there's anything I can do to help get one out the door.

It will be done when it's done. Except from testing current SVN and reporting problems you find, there is nothing you can do. Ideally, since you are a developer yourself, built your own version, so you can quickly test fixes to SVN or patches yourself instead of waiting for me to do a new built (my builts are mostly automated via AppleScript but my machine needs to run and sometimes my SVN copy is messed up).

It almost never helps bugging developers about new versions.