Re: Gnome 2 infinity and beyond [was Re: Tango and 2.16]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Andrew Sobala wrote:

> Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:09:32 +0100
> From: Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: desktop-devel-list <desktop-devel-list gnome org>
> Subject: Re: Gnome 2 infinity and beyond [was Re: Tango and 2.16]
>
> Alan Horkan wrote:

> > I put serious thought into the fact that Gnome 3.0 would be useful way to
> > highlight all the progress that has been made.  A major version number
> > change is also of some marketing value.


> Look at the desktop. It's got incredibly amazing since the times of
> GNOME 2.2, but it's still very much a GNOME two series desktop.
>
> There are ideas for what people want from a GNOME 3.0 desktop, and these
> Topaz-related include:

[...  big big ideas ...]

> I've picked out the biggest ideas; there's much more than this on the
> Wiki.

If two or three of those big ideas were to coincide (especially I really
do think it would merit a major release.

> And it can *all* be done *now.* That's the point.

Yes.  I'm glad that much is clear.

> It's big. It's hard.  It's a lot of work. But there's nothing to stop
> any of these ideas being implemented. And when we have the code to make
> this all work, we can build something new: the next generation desktop,
> and call it GNOME 3.0.  But we can't keep doing "little" point-release
> things and pass a future point-release off as GNOME 3.0 - it doesn't
> work like that.

> We'd be crucified.

Expectations.  If we did it with a few weeks notice we'd be rightly
crucified for letting it build up for so long to some utopian vision no
one would be satisfied with.  If it was planned 6-12 months in advance
that a 2.x release would be called 3.0 in recognition of X and Y big
features then we would be able to manage expectations.

More likely Gnome 2.x will continue on for many more years.

--
Alan H