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, Sri Ramkrishna wrote:

> Yes, we'll never get over the stigma.  As a beta tester myself GNOME2.0
> currently while very fast and impressive visually is not a fully
> functionally desktop.
> 
> I would say that we can judge the state of gnome2  by looking at the
> number of unique bug reports that are filed per week.  If there is a
> excessively high number then we're in bad shape.  (I'm not coding so I
> don't know what would count as excessive, individual maintainers would
> have to decide that)  We need to reflect and decide what works
> as a minimal functioning GNOME2.0 system.  For instance, I would
> throw out the menu editing stuff since it's currently broken as not
> necessary as part of the user experience.
> 
> Once we have a core set of features that people want, release it as
> a developer's only release 1.9999.  Use long release numbers it sticks
> in people's heads better than "Developer Release".  I know it bugs
> the hell out of me when I see it.
> 

If you personally were a user, would you give people who release something
as 1.9999 instead of 2.0 any less flack than otherwise? If so, then why?

If people *DID* have all those high expectations, why did we not hear the
screeming every time we released a beta (and some of them were
undescribably more broken compared to the present ones). Alternatively,
are are still buggy beyond comprehension but don't know yet because we
didn't release. We don't need to release to find bugs - we need to release
bugs that matter (and not just oddities thatare at the same time a
'blocker' and 'low priority').

> If we have a relatively small number of bugs coming then we're seeing
> the same stuff and I would put move people around to tackle the bugs. 
> 
> As for burn out, I think developers need to see a release soon in order to
> at least get some sort of feedback.  Long hours of toiling and then not
> seeing anything gets tiring.  So lets at least make some sort of 1.9999
> release with some of the features disabled and then continue forward.
> 
> However, don't make a 2.0 until either you are completely stable and you
> have at least feature comparisant with 1.4.  People don't want to upgrade
> and then not have all the same features they expect in 1.4.  I know I
> would be annoyed as a end user especially if I depend on them.
> 

complete stability and feature parity with 1.4 will not arrive for *MANY*
more moths and teher is nothing much you can do about that. It definately
won't be there in July.

>
> sri
> 

	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