[Evolution] open letter to Ximian Evo team: RH 6.2 blues

[Fernando Pereira <fpereira flipdog com>]

The constant crashes of the composer in 0130 are slowly but surely
making me reconsider my experiment with Evolution. We RH 6.2 users have
not had a fresh snapshot since Jan 30, and it's apparent from the kinds
of build failures reported on primates.ximian.com that providing a 6.2
snapshot is not a high priority for Ximian. I hope that I am wrong, but
this does not bode well for Ximian's approach to potential customers.
Yes, I would be willing to pay out of my own pocket for a high-quality
Linux mail client. I paid for Eudora and upgrades for five years while
using Macs, and I felt that was money very well spent. Qualcomm had an
excellent early access beta program with fast response to bug reports,
and I'm sure that they benefited much from the feedback of users that
learned to trust them enough to try out their beta releases. I have
tried to report all Evo bugs I find in as much detail as I can, but it's
pretty much useless to do so if I am stuck in the "solved in CVS" limbo
for over one week.

So, the question for the Ximian Evo team is: are you prepared to make it
possible for people who want to help with testing to actually help? It
is *possible* to do this, as Qualcomm's Eudora team -- a small one, BTW
-- proved over many years. The question is whether there is the will to
do so.

Don't get me wrong. I think you are doing many things right. But when it
comes to involving users willing to spend the effort to test releases
and report problems carefully, I think there is serious room for
improvement. I hope you will find a way to take those steps, if nothing
else because that would be the path to some people's wallets, and, more
importantly, to the budgets of their businesses.

-- F