Re: Evolution 2.0 and GNOME 2.6

[Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

> >Comments?
> 
> I personally have one problem with it. I find the Gnome 2.6 release
> under-featured if Evolution goes out of the way.

I consider GNOME 2.6 to be one of those releases right before the real 
good stuff comes.  (eg it's the very top right before the rollercoaster 
plunges downward)  So it's okay to have a release without having a lot of 
flash.

And I disagree about lack of features.  Usability is much improved.  I can 
now browse my samba shares effortlessly.  If people don't like spatial, 
they can still use the old method it's not gone away.

> this won't even considered a 'feature'), there are no other *notable*
> user-visible changes.

If you hurry and put packages that aren't ready and don't fit the 
requirements the user-visible changes would be a negative impact.  We 
shouldn't sacrifice quality for marketability.

> This situation can have a negative impact "marketing-wise" to this release.
> Especially when KDE 3.2 (released around the Gnome's 2.6 release timeframe)
> is supposed to be a much more full-featured release in comparison to their
> version 3.1.5. This might sound a lot like shallow marketing blah-blah, but
> when it comes to try to attract as many users as possible from both other
> OSes but also from other DEs, these things do matter.

Well, sure you're looking at it from a marketing perspective.  But I 
disagree.  I don't think we should compete with KDE's featureset by trying 
to come up with something so our release notes look as cool.  Quality 
overrides all.  Make no wine before it's time. blah blah. blah.  Anyways, 
this isn't a race. :-)

> but I would suggest to find a... replacement for its absense in order to
> cope with the "user visible new features" problem. Rhythmbox or Totem or
> Anjuta 1.2.1 might be able to play that game in 2.6's favor IMHO, but
> really, this is mostly a marketing/strategic decision to be made more than a
> developement one.

Anjuta doesn't make sense as part of the core desktop since most users are 
not going to be developing ideally.  I thought Totem was part of the core, 
but I may be wrong.  Need to go back and look at the mail Murray sent out 
on the finalized list.

I'm for not pushing anything because if we screw it up the impression that 
it's not a quality release will potentially be more damaging if the user 
is not satisified with the experience.

Much as I would love to show something super kick butt, I think we can do 
that with 2.8 and the results will be just as positive and compelling as 
if we released it now.

sri