Re: Freeze is too early

["Michael Mathers" <mathers2 dreamsync com>]

>On Tue, 15 Dec 1998, Michael Mathers wrote:
>> With all of these messages concerning the freeze and whether or not
>> changes are applicable...  Especially in light of a large amount of
>> discussion concering UI and common dialogs.. Does anybody think that
>> MAYBE this freeze is a MIGHT early!!
>
>Hell no. Release early and often - GNOME has been terrible about that,
>earning a reputation for vaporware despite huge quantities of code and
>hundreds of developers.


What are you talking about?  With CVS (when it's working, that is), GNOME is essentially releasing CONTINUOUSLY!
Freezing is the ABSENCE of change..

>The freeze is to 0.99. We're beta testing for a few weeks, then releasing.
>There will be glitches and suboptimal aspects, but GNOME is already a
>great desktop and good enough to support nice applications, so we want to
>get it out there. Improvements will be made, but then we just release
>another version. It's not like 1.0 is the end of the line.


So, we'll basically be saying..  "Ya know, it's not bad.  Actually, it's rather decent despite a couple of(known)
quirks."  -- Hardly inspiring.  Particularly when 3-4 MONTHS at 0.99 could change that.  It's not correct to try and
capitilize on the recent OSS hype and bugaboo.  It's correct to release good software and software that's READY.

"It's done when it's done."  -- ESR

>Plus we all know that UI discussions are neverending, and the file dialog
>has already come up half a dozen times as a neverending topic. It's just
>that no one has had time to write it, maybe waiting on gmc to be finished
>first. The current one is Good Enough For Now.


I could cite the UI as being the cause for dissatisfaction, but let's assume that it is because UI discussions are
neverending.  However, if the real reason is because "no one has had time to write it", quite frankly, I'm amazed that
you would dismiss the idea that the freeze is too soon so easily.  This certainly is not the only problems GNOME is
having right now.  There are an unbelievable amount of compilation/installation problems.  Am I correct in reading that
GNOME installation does not correctly identify if you have glibc (kernel threads) support installed?  Don't you think
this is an issue that will affect ALOT of people (Linux systems)?  Albeit, someone like you or I could figure out the
problem sooner or later and get GNOME 1.0 working.  But this is not really the only audience we are targetting now, are
we?  How much irreparable damage will be caused by the myriad of users who just read about how great OSS/Linux/FreeBSD
is and then decide to try it and are baffled/stumped/dissillusioned about GNOME v1.0?  It won't matter to me, I'll just
wait until v1.1.  But how many others will?

But, I have a better idea.. Why not just subtract 0.1 from those version numbers instead?

Simple is better.  Correct is better.

-Michael Mathers
mathers2@azcrew.org
http://www.azcrew.org