RE: Gtk/Gnome release schedules

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Thu, 2003-02-06 at 06:58, Michael Meeks wrote:
> Hi Martyn, Bob, Owen,
> 
> 	Since this is an emotive topic, and there are never any shortage of
> people crawling out of the woodwork to tell Owen to work even harder /
> faster :-) I think we should recognise, that since we are lumbered with
> at least 1 deprecated file selector (FS) API, we all agree that it's
> worth taking time to make sure that the new one is solid.
> 
> 	Also; some of the other bits in the new gtk+ plan, such as (eg.) the
> auto-completion stuff for GtkEntries is (perhaps) tied to the
> implementation of the FS.[1], and also fairly tricky to get right
> (AFAIR from talking to Clahey/Trow).

I don't think we have to tie together completion and the file selector..
yes, it would be easier if we can reuse a stock solution for completion,
but there are multiple examples of OK-ish autocompletion done with
the standard GtkEntry.

> 	It seems to me that we should all wait until Owen is 100% happy with
> the new FS code, which could be as long as it takes.

I think the question is more whether there will be a consensus on
a fairly simple API, or whether people will want a lot of complex
features and the debate will continue...

While getting the API details right is a big priority to me, that's
something that can be done in a pretty finite amount of time with
some review.

The thing that will take time is for people to use the new API
and make sure it meets the requirements.

> 	Having said that - it would be nice to think that if
> Owen/Kris/Hadess/Whomever got abnormally hyperactive and produce
> something that everyone likes RSN, that we could (perhaps) do a stop-gap
> Gtk+-2.4 release, based off the 2.2 branch, with only the new FS API [
> and internal auto-completion stuff ? ].

No, I don't think multiple streams of development makes sense:

 - Multiple streams of development requires more merging, more
   review, more coordination, and more release engineering.

   2.2 and 2.3 will be quite enough, thanks :-)

 - My experience is that if people are concentrating on 2.3.x
   development, nothing will happen on 2.5.x or vice versa.

Plus, as Matthias points out, it's not like we have a ton of big
development to do plus the file selector that is easy; rather 
we have a lot of stuff almost finished, plus the file selector.
Pushing off, say, the disclosure triangle widget until 2.6 doesn't
really make sense.

> 	Owen - is that a reasonable straw for the hopeful to clutch at for the
> moment ? that _might_ then result in getting something beautiful for
> Gnome 2.4 - assuming that is that Gnome sticks with the 6 month
> schedule.

Getting GTK+-2.4 out by June 1 just doesn't really seem feasible to
me from experience. A July 1 date might just be possible, though
I wouldn't really like to commit to that until we get a bit
more of an idea how things are going. 

While it might work out, planning a 6 GNOME release with GTK+-2.4
doesn't really seem to be a wise idea to me.

Regards,
                                            Owen