Re: GNOME 2.0 Schedule

[Christian Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org>]

On Thu, 2001-10-11 at 12:40, STEPHEN BROWNE wrote:
> 
> Releasing often is fine as long as it is mainly for bug fixes
> and there is no API breakage or significant UI breakages.

<SNIP>
 
> I dont know about other Gnome distributors, but from a SUN point of view
> I would really really not like to deliver multiple versions of libs
> (because porting didnt happen on time) and/or change (possibly
> radically?)
> the UI shortly after a fully supported release.
> 
> Support costs would go through the roof. 

Eeeck! I don't know what you qualify as major UI breakages or changes,
but if you are suggesting a UI freeze for GNOME between 2.0 and 3.0 I
will have to protest. Changing fast and having a low threshold for
accepting improvements has always been a winning factor for Free
Software. So while I could support a stance that we will not change the
way the GNOME desktop works in a radical way for instance from todays
way to a NextStepish interface except as part of major releases, I do
think that we must allow more incremental improvements/changes to be
added to desktop, like for instance a new panel implementation(which I
would suspect to share many of the attributes of the current one if it
where to appear) or improved gnome-utils for instance.

If Sun feels such changes are not acceptable then I suggest Sun holds
onto the old version for themselves, but asking the GNOME project as a
whole to stop going forward will be the kiss of death if agreed to.

As for API changes I am much more sympatic to your view as long as it
restricts itself to changes not additions, but then again that has  been
the policy up to now anyway.

Christian