Did GNOME go 1.0 too early?

[Jason Tackaberry <tack dok org>]

I hope you don't read this as flame-bait.  Let's keep ourselves level
headed.:)

That said, I'm a bit worried about GNOME 1.0 being released too early.  I have
to admit, gnome-libs and gnome-core seem to be quite good.  I haven't had many
problems with the panel lately (except when trying to convert an edge panel to
a corner panel, but not everyone has been able to reproduce this segfault).

But gmc, while it's progressed _very_ impressively over the past month, is
still very unstable for me (and many others, as I've seen in this list).
Miguel has been fantastic with responding to bug reports, and I'm sure he is
very swamped.  But, IMO, gmc is very important for a user-friendly desktop
(that GNOME aims to be).  An unstable gmc will leave novices very dissappointed
(because I don't think I'd be wrong to say it would be the most used part of
GNOME, perhaps next to the panel).  I hate to pick on gmc (because I can't
emphasize enough how amazing it has progressed over the last 2 months); there
are many other parts of gnome that are rough around the edges and could
probably use another month of cleaning.

I understand it's hard to know when to draw the line.  We could sit here
forever fixing bugs and never actually release anything.  I am just saying
I think maybe we jumped the gun by a bit.

I have no doubt in my mind that we won't eventually get a superior product.  I
know the community won't succumb to the same pressures that commercial vendors
do: releasing a product too early, and then be forced to release kludgey,
hacked up fixes too early, until you've got layer upon layer of crap that you
are now forced to support and extend.  While I think that the GNOME 1.0 release
was a bit too early, I know development will still continue on the right track.

I am mostly concerned, though, that there has been a bit of outside pressure to
get something out the door.  For instance, I believe RedHat wanted to ship
GNOME with RH 6.0, and I wonder if the powers that be aren't pressuring the
folks at RHAD to hurry things along.  This is understandable from a commercial
sense, but it just isn't the Linux way.  To the RHAD gang: how has management
been through the development so far?  Do you feel _too much_ pressure to get
something released?  (A little pressure is, of course, always a good thing.)

Linux (and also GNOME) is under tremendous media scrutiny.  This means that
any tiny shortcomings will be amplified.  GNOME 1.0 can't and shouldn't be
expected to be perfect, but little and obvious details that are usually
corrected during the debugging phase will stand out quite a bit.  And I
shouldn't have to say that once someone like Jesse Berst experiences his
first segfault, he will immediately report that the whole thing is garbage.
We're smart enough to ignore his rantings, but most of future Linux converts
probably aren't.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough.  Please don't misunderstand the
point of this post.  This (perhaps pointlessly) verbose email was just to voice
my concern that maybe Gnome was released a bit too early.  I tried not to sound
discouraging in my words, because most of you donate your time to a truly
excellent project.  I'm mostly interested in hearing if the developers feel
that this release is a bit premature.

Regards,
Jason.