Re: About the 2.18 release plans (was Re: User oriented release notes)

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi Quim,

Quim Gil wrote:
> In short: let's propose to the release team a call for 2.18 goals to the
> developers.

Maybe you missed this mail I sent to desktop-devel-list last week:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-September/msg00114.html

I have a file containing all of the MAINTAINERS files in GNOME CVS -
unsorted by whether the module is in the GNOME desktop, bindings, admin
or platform releases, or isn't in a GNOME release set at all.

I will be happy to send this on to someone else who'd like to take on
this task - since I have no internet access outside work hours for the
next few weeks. I have the file here, but obviously don't want to send
it to a public mailing list (we receive enough spam already). Interested
parties reply off-list please.

The task is fairly simple:
* Categorise maintainers by module, categorise modules by GNOME status
(see release sets above, and add in GNOME/non-GNOME for the others).
Some modules, for example, such as the GIMP, aren't GNOME programs and
probably wouldn't appreciate a request for "what features are you
planning to add" - other modules are following the GNOME release cycle,
and should be considered "part of GNOME", even if they're not in the
releases. Rhythmbox comes to mind.
* Do your best to avoid double-sending mails to the same person
* Send a mail to all the maintainers explaining what we're trying to do
briefly and ask them what features they expect to have in the next two
release cycles
* Aggregate the results at GNOME Roadmap in the wiki, and publish/spread
the results.

This mail could also be sent to desktop-devel-list, or gnome-announce,
but perhaps we should take feedback from thoise sources with a grain of
salt when held against the feedback we get from the module maintainers
(who will inevitably be driving feature additions).

> The responses would be listed at
> http://live.gnome.org/RoadMap . After October 18th [End of new (app)
> modules proposal period] we extract these goals in another wiki page
> where release team and marketing team with the supervision of the board
> triage, group and prioritize 3-5 core goals that will be the basis for a
> common 2.18 strategy.

My idea for this is not so much to try to concentrate or channel efforts
to certain core goals (that would be brilliant, but I don't think it's
feasible for a first try at this). My main intention is to get module
maintainers thinking now about features they'd like to prioritise for
2.18 and 2.20, and to see if we can't get a synergy effect where two
maintainers realise that some goal they have is related, and they get
working on things together.

Why am I asking people to think 2 releases ahead? Because I figure that
the next release will always have as it's focus near-term goals (fix the
frobnoz dialog to do blingnit), whereas when thinking a year ahead,
maintainers will tend to look to more aspirational goals. I'm hoping
that the net effect is to help make some of those aspirational goals
become a reality.

> If the release team thinks it's worth, we can start collaborating now.

I think this is an excellent way to get out of a funk and generate a
positive collaboration between marketing and development. I heartily
endorse this product or service.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
David Neary
bolsh gnome org