What do we do with our release plans for a 2.2.0 release? We planned that release for the upcoming weekend [1], but currently the development has slowed significantly. Even more importantly, the PR Planning [2] has made almost zero progress, but we would need at least a week of work there before we have enough PR material for the Windows release.
To recall the rationale for a 2.2.0 release: We planned this release to turn our current "trunk" into a stable branch right before the GSoC students can start to integrate their work into trunk. The plan would be to have yet another stable series after all GSoC projects have finished successfully (end of summer) and we've integrated the new features into the overall product sufficiently (end of the year). This is IMHO the reason for the 2.2.0 at this time because if we didn't have it before GSoC, we won't have it before probably the end of the year, which in turn would be quite a very long time since 2.0.0 (July 2006). The only major new feature for 2.2.0 is the completed Windows port, and my hope is that this would attract significantly more users (and eventually developers) for the future. However, on the downside the release on Windows will also bring us many many new bugreports, and even worse, many of those bugreports that most of us won't be able to reproduce because most of us don't have MS Windows readily available. Hence, the question is not only whether we have Trunk ready for a stable release by now, but also: Are we ready for another 6-8 weeks of MS Windows bug squashing once 2.2.0 bugs are being reported? I, for one, have to admit I probably won't have much time; I can work on 1-2 actual bugs per months right now, but not more than that. I don't know how the upcoming months look for you... Basically two options: * Continue as planned: Have 2.2.0 ASAP, and just try our best to fix the newly reported Windows bugs in the weeks after that (implying several 2.2.x releases in the upcoming weeks). We probably can't make it this weekend as originally planned, which is why I proposed another 2.1.4 release this weekend in the wiki page. Pro: This will give a whole new momentum to our userbase and PR coverage, and we also get rid of some 2.0.x bugs that already have been fixed in trunk (although I can't recall any from the top of my head). Con: We risk being drowned in Windows bugs that we can't easily fix, which might lead to considerable frustration for bugreporters and for us as well. (Note that the small number of new features IMHO isn't a marketing problem at all because "Port to Windows" is a big deal already. From a MS Windows user point of view, we're basically a brand new application that didn't exist before!) * Delay 2.2.0 until after GSoC has finished. Pro: No overwhelming by too many reported Windows bugs. Marketing the new release will be even easier because apart from the Windows port, we will have some shiny new GSoC features available. Con: We can't tell by now the point in time when the GSoC contributions will have stabilized enough so that we can call this a stable release. GSoC ends by end of August. We really don't know whether a 2.2.0 would be possibly by September or rather by December, which in turn can easily turn into beginning of 2008. Also, some users might be enticed to switch to 2.1.x releases just because the last stable release will already be so old by the end of this year. More thoughts? Decisions? I'm unsure, really. I'd prefer to have 2.2.0 by now, but I have to admit I won't have much time dealing with Windows bugs after that. If there is a majority to have 2.2.0 by now, I'd happily deal with the PR work; however, if we prefer to delay it, then I'd also happily delay the PR work as well. Regards, Christian [1] http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Release_Schedule [2] http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/PR_planning _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
