Hi all,
I'd like to start the discussions and some brainstorming for how we
could continue development going forward. This will be a bullet list for
now, once we've discussed, I'll capture all this in a few Wiki pages.
These items are just ideas that have been brewing for a while, and I
don't want to risk losing them due to my ageing brain going mushy.
* We aim for 6-month release schedule for major stable releases.
This would put us around mid-December for v3.2, and June 2012 for
v3.4 (or 4.0, depending on what we schedule in for feature
changes, see further down).
* We need a much better project plan for these stable releases. I'll
start the work on the v3.2 plans on the Wiki asap. What I'd like
to see is three main sections, like
1. New features (this has to be a reasonable list, and probably
no more than 1-2 major feature per core developer / team).
2. Major bug fixes (this can be a bigger list, but still
achievable).
3. Incremental fixes as deemed necessary (bug reports, crashers
etc.)
The Wiki will obviously be open for everyone to participate with
ideas and additions.
* I'm hoping that v3.2 and v3.4 will be much less painful, and much
less risky, to finish and upgrade too compared to the v2.0.0 to
v3.0.0 cycle. We definitely need to add a few more features in
each relaese, but perhaps with much more focus on stability,
performance, and usability (ease of use, correctness etc.). Our
users probably will go crazy if they have to experience the 3.0.0
pain on every major release :).
* We should do incremental patch releases for v3.0.x as often as
necessary. This will not be driven by a fixed schedule, but by
what the community and our users decides are important to release.
Obviously security bugs have priority as well.
* I'd like to suggest that we have a release manager for the v3.0.x
releases. This doesn't exclude anyone else from cutting a release,
and it does not change how a release is created and voted on. But,
it will ease the burden of preparing periodic patch releases,
backporting patches, and overall "herding the cats" to get things
done for a release. If this is agreed upon, we'll start a
different thread on this topic, and if you are interested in
taking on this role, please post.
* Documentation, we need to get this stabilized, and to the point
where any code changes that also requires doc changes should all
be done together (i.e. no separate bugs thrown over the magical
doc fence).
Please discuss.
-- Leif
