Re: communication/information between forward-looking projects [was Re: Some info (Ref: GSOC 2008 advice)]

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Dave/Behdad:

Dave Neary wrote:
> Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-03-03 at 16:14 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> > > The first step in releasing GNOME 3.0 is to dissociate the in-built
> > > assumption "will break everything" from the version jump.
> > Sure, we can go from GNOME 2.22 this cycle straight to GNOME 24 the next
> > one.  What does *that* buy us?  That is, there needs to be reason for
> > breaking the current practice, not the other way.
>
> Quoting myself:
> "Many users think "major version bump" is synonymous with "significant
> new features"."

"Many" is a fuzzy word.  How many is many?

Whether a user would find a GNOME 2.24 renamed to GNOME 3.0 release
exciting would probably depends on what version the user was
previously using.  If they were using 2.6 (or something similarly old),
they might feel the wealth of new features warrants the major release
bump.  Users coming from GNOME 2.22 might not feel the same.

> If you agree with that (you're free not to), then it's not a huge leap
> to negate that statement:
> "Many users think "minor version bump" is synonymous with "no
> significant new features"."
>
> And that gives you a good reason to periodically increment the major
> version number.

There are other ways to fix a problem of perception than to do a 3.0
release.  Perhaps we could make people more aware that the GNOME team
does a great job of keeping the platform interfaces stable, and we
do this without sacrificing new and exciting features.   There is value
in keeping interfaces stable, and we could perhaps better market this
fact.

I am not opposed to doing a 3.0 release, mind you.  I just think that
a 3.0 release should involve more coordination than just deciding to
rename GNOME 2.24 to "3.0".  In my opinion, a 3.0 release should make 
some effort to take GNOME to the next level.  It should not be done
because a "major release hasn't happened in a long time, and the KDE
team did one."

For example, shouldn't we do things like review the HIG and make sure
that long-standing issues get resolution, make some effort to coordinate
a 3.0 release with a new "Project Ridley" based development platform
that is lighter and more powerful.  Might it make sense to wait until
GNOME and KDE are using common D-Bus based interfaces for accessibility?
We should coordinate our 3.0 efforts so that we have some substance to
back it up.  There seem to be things in the pipeline that would warrant
a 3.0 release in the non-too-distant future.  Why not just hold off
until then?

Brian