While I am as frustrated as you with some of the bugs and regressions that you mention, I don't think it is constructive, or even in your self interest, to take such a scolding and tattling tone with people, many of whom volunteer, to provide you with software for free.
On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 11:48 -0400, Andrew Montalenti wrote: > I recently upgraded from Ubuntu Hardy to Ubuntu Intrepid. Most of my > GNOME software worked well upon upgrade, there were even some > improvements. However, a major piece of GNOME software that I use > every > single day and that is important to both my personal life and business > stopped functioning correctly: Evolution. > > It's clear to me that from 2.22 -> 2.24.3, Evolution redesigned its > backend data store and unleashed this onto users as a "stable release" > with disastrous effects. If you look around this list, you'll find > lots > of discontent. Basic things that existed in Evolution 2.22 -- basic > features -- no longer work. For example: > > * Search folders or searches including "unread message" status does > not > work (regression) > > * Declaring a search folder of a search folder (vfolder of a vfolder) > no > longer works (regression). For me and many others on the list, this > essentially meant that all of our vfolders stopped working altogether, > meaning that we had to reorganize our mail in a different way. > (regression) > > * Unread message counts are incorrect vis-a-vis the reality. For > example, every time I send a message, my inbox's unread message count > goes up by 1. This despite the fact that there are no unread messages > there. Others report even larger divergences. (regression) > > * The "Unmatched" VFolder no longer exists. (regression) > > It turns out that these fixes still have no been committed even in Evo > 2.26, released in March. Brian J. Murrell has been rightfully > indignant about this. He has been living with these regressions for > months. > > I consider Evolution to be one of the core pieces of software that > GNOME offers, and one that the GNOME release team should carefully > watch when declaring new "stable" releases of GNOME. I think that you > guys have done the GNOME community a major disservice by releasing > 2.24/2.26 as "stable" GNOME software. > > I think the fact that Evo was allowed to be released at this new > version with so many regressions is really a sad state of affairs, and > suggests that GNOME needs to reconsider its release process. I'm > going > to be contacting the GNOME release team about this. > > Evo worked fine at 2.22, and I see very few improvements between 2.22 > and 2.24, only regressions. That suggests that someone on the Evo > team > thought it was a good idea to "redesign the internals" without really > committing to what that entailed -- releasing the redesigned version > to > a small "beta" community before declaring it to be the "stable > version" > released to thousands of production users and including in all major > distributions as the latest and greatest stable software from GNOME. > > As a software engineer myself, I would never do unto my users what the > evo developers have done unto theirs. Do you understand that even a > *single regression* can cause users to stop using your software? > > I don't know what can be done about it now, but this reflects very > badly on Evolution and GNOME for me. I'm a long-time GNOME user (~ 10 > years), and in recent years as my computer has become more and more > integral to my livelihood, as a small business owner and software > engineer. I have become more and more hesitant about upgrading to the > latest GNOME versions. That's why I was still running Ubuntu Hardy as > of a week ago. At least it worked. I upgraded to Intrepid only > because Jaunty is right around the corner, and I figured this would at > least represent a "stable" snapshot of software. I guess I was wrong. > > What does it say when some of GNOME's most committed users (users who > have hacking credentials -- I know C, GTK+, and GObject!) are hesitant > to upgrade to your latest stable releases? Even worse, what does it > say when their hesitancy is justified? > > I really want the best for GNOME and Evolution and want to see this > situation improve. I don't know what can be done about it now from > the > Evolution side, but at the very least, a "mea culpa" from the core > developers would be a good start. For those of us in the community > (like myself) that have some hacking credentials and could help fix > the > mess you created, some pointers for *how* to help you guys out would > be > a good second step. > > Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > Evolution-list mailing list > Evolution-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list > -- Art Alexion Resources for Human Development, Inc. 215-951-0300 x3075 4700 Wissahickon Ave. a...@rhd.org Philadelphia, PA 19144 267-615-3172 _______________________________________________ Evolution-list mailing list Evolution-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list
