Re: Dia-0.95

[christian ridderstrom gmail com]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 tim bogie gvds com au wrote:

> > > You'll have to find some way of managing interem bugfix releases if
> > > non-developers are going to keep using dia.
...
> > > It is a wonderful tool, but I cannot wait a year for brickwall bugs
> > > to get fixed. Even if there are new minor bugs left in the minor
> > > releases, releases with the major bugs need to be out more often.
...
> > Amen. Release early and often. CVS = some bugs fixed, other bugs
> > introduced. A big no-no for formal deployment, specially for random
> > users and always-rushing admins for which compiling it under Windows is
> > a PITA.
...
> Geez.  Don't you think all you whingers are being a bit heavy on Lars
> and Hans.  My point of view is that they have created this off their own
> sweat and deserve some kudos and respect for what they have built.

Lars and Hans definitely deserve credit, kudos and glory for what they've
accomplished with Dia. Especially as I think most of us know how difficult
it is to have enough time for all the things we want to work on. So I
certainly understand why Lars/Hans can't do as much as they'd like to do.

However, having said that I think it is fair to let them know of problems
with Dia. You can even argue that this is a way of helping the project.
Once they know of these problems, it's definitely their prerogative to
completely ignore it. It is up to them to choose, and ignore any advice to
release more often.

Personally I hope they will release more often. Speaking only for myself,
the problems with the fonts have made it problematic for me to work with
Dia. In addition, it has made it extremely difficult for me to get my
co-workers to also use it :-(    This in turn makes collaboration
problematic, and right now we're considering using something else because
of this :-(

> From a practical point of view, if they are reluctant to release a 0.95
because it may contain bugs, perhaps it'd feel better if it's initially
called 0.95-beta. The "beta" tells me that it's not considered stable, but
it's at least not such a moving target as 0.95-CVS.  This would also allow
us users to help them by testing it and give them feedback on bug fixes...
The important thing here for us users would be that the file format
doesn't change randomly.

> Dia is a fantastic product, even for something that hasn't hit version
> 1.0 yet.

Dia is fantastic, but perhaps we should remember that it is a open project
rather than a product. The difference to me is that we aren't paying for
it, and the resposibility of helping to make it better falls on all of us.

best regards
/Christian

-- 
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44               http://www.md.kth.se/~chr