Re: What are the community's goals for 2.0? [was Re: Getting serious about releasing]

[Sander Vesik <Sander Vesik Sun COM>]

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Owen Taylor wrote:

> 
> Observations:
> 
>  * Just pushing the deadline out can often be a very bad way of getting
>    a stable release out.
> 
>     - People lose interest
>     - People start hacking on cool post release features instead of 
>       working on the release
>     - You get into a eternal cycle of "but we have to fix X" "but we have to fix Y"
>       "but we have to fix Z".
>     - Dependencies start shifting underneath you. ("Oh, but GTK+-2.2 will
>       be out then, we should use that.")
>    

Total agreement here! 8-)

>  * There are stability guarantees that have to be made for:
> 
>     - API
>     - File locations
>     - String freezes
> 
>    That block people from doing the final stabiliziation for a vendor
>    release until the upstream has said "this is it."
> 
>    I don't think it's reasonable for Ximian/Sun to say "we will guarantee
>    that GNOME-2.0 is out by July". But once GNOME-2.0 is out, it's
>    much more reasonable to say "we will have a GNOME-2.0 based product
>    we feel comfortable shipping by July."
> 

While I don't speak for Sun, I don't think Sun would say "we will
quarantee that GNOME-2.0 is out by July", and seeing Luis send out a
message from which such could be implied was quite suprising to me. What
Sun wants to release isn't (AFAIK) entirely the same as the contents of
gnome-2.0 and what priorities for the various parts exists aren't the same
either. So no, we aren't guaranteeing a quality release in july, we aren't
highjacking the release to our own purposes and we aren't doing any other
unreasonable things either.

That said, naturaly, I'm not saying "Ximian can't say they will be working
on x, y and z for a deadline at D" - of course they can (at least as far
as I am concerned), but i'd like it if people excericed some care making
inferences from that to magic hapenning.

> Regards,
>                                         Owen
> 
> (*) And we need to be ruthless in taking the simplest path to fixing
>    such problems. "X crashes" ... "can we remove X?". "Menu item Y does nothing"
>     "remove menu item Y".
> 
> (**) No, not for your grandmother.
> 

	Sander

	I see a dark sail on the horizon
	Set under a dark cloud that hides the sun
	Bring me my Broadsword and clear understanding