IMHO, with an open source project there is no such thing as a shipping
version. I know that statement is going to bring a vast amount of feedback
but here is the deal. There is no REAL support. Compared to commercial
products that you can pay to have bugs fixed or work done. In all honesty,
the WIX team can stop working on this project tomorrow with no SLA being
broken (I know their not going to, but...).
In my mind, this is the same issue that occurs with using NAnt, Apache, SVN,
CVS or any other open source software. Putting labels on it is not
important. It is open source and you either choose to use the version that
is stable enough for you, keep upgrading with each release or don't use it
at all.
I had to run this flag up the totem pole at a few large companies. There is
a cost ratio to open source even though the code is free. The cost is no
paid support and no time lines. If there is a bug in the code that blocks
your product from shipping, then so be it. You have the code, you fix it
(additional resources/time needed which equals $$$). This needs to be
factored into your companies budget rather than asking the development team
to "shape up" their model. These guys are doing this out of their desire and
until MS ponies up and devotes a fully paid staff to the project there
should be no solid expections. If the WIX team chooses to offer time and
support that is great, but not a necessity.
My $0.02...
--
Brian Rogers
"Intelligence removes complexity." - BR
http://www.codeplex.com/wixml/
On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 9:27 AM, Neil Sleightholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> I would like to make a suggestion: Could the beta tag on v3 be replaced
> with something less emotive.
>
> I am having problems convincing managers to accept v3 because of the
> beta tag, I think the code is more than that and has so much more than
> v2 that is worth adopting. I think if we have to wait for another year
> before the beta tag is removed it will stop a greater adoption of the
> code.
>
> I would suggest that in the near future (one or two months) it is
> released as something else. I'm not sure what but copying Microsoft you
> could use CTP (Community Technology Preview).
>
> Neil
>
> Neil Sleightholm
> X2 Systems Limited
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob
> Mensching
> Sent: 27 May 2008 19:22
> To: dB.; Daniel Hughes; wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
> Subject: Re: [WiX-users] WIX 3.0 release date
>
> Interesting. Let's go back and look at the things that are driving the
> WiX v3 release.
>
> 1. Bugs. WiX v2 was marked "stable" by pushing a number of bugs to WiX
> v3 (especially Votive bugs). There are still a lot of bugs open that
> need to be fixed. I do not just want to push a bunch of WiX v2 bugs to
> WiX v4.
>
> 2. Patching. Patching is hard with MSI and the new tools in WiX v3 can
> help a lot. Those tools are basically done and we're just running down
> the bug tail now.
>
> 3. Votive. Votive was *very* rough in WiX v2. It had years to go
> before it was going to truly useable. In WiX v3, Justin and a lot of
> help from members of the VS team have made Votive far more usable.
> There are still a lot of bugs to fix and the only reason I think it can
> be done this year is because of the VS help. Otherwise, I'm quite
> certain we'd *still* have a very crippled VS story.
>
> 4. Bootstrapper. Every other day or so there is another request for
> chaining/bootstrapping. Some of the solutions out there meet some
> people's needs but IMHO none of them have all of the features that are
> needed to meet the majority of bootstrapping needs. This part of the
> WiX toolset is about 2 years late and I think it is a big mistake to go
> into 2009 without a useable bootstrap story.
>
> 5. DTF. After finally deciding that the MSI team was not going to do
> it, I asked Jason Ginchereau if he would like to add DTF to WiX v3.
> This codebase was pretty stable so my expectation was that this wouldn't
> affect our bug count much.
>
> Now let's talk about who's doing all of this work. I'm driving the bug
> count overall with help from the area owners. Peter Marcu
> (http://blogs.msdn.com/pmarcu) is driving the patching support backed up
> by Heath Stewart (http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths). Votive is lead by
> Justin Rockwood (http://blogs.msdn.com/jrock/) and Jason Ginchereau
> (http://blogs.msdn.com/jasongin)'s team from VS. The bootstrapper code
> base is being developed by Fredrik Grohn (http://fredrikgrohn.com) and
> hopefully will be added to WiX soon. DTF is, of course, Jason's baby.
> Bob Arnson (http://www.joyofsetup.com) basically helps out everywhere.
>
> With the exception of the VS team I would guess that each of those
> people donate about 10 hours per week to the toolset. There are others
> but that is the bulk of regular development happening on the WiX
> toolset. The sheer number of hours available to address bugs is why I
> think it will take until the end of the year. We could cut the
> bootstrapper (again) to focus solely on bugs and probably "finish" WiX
> v3 sooner but I believe the bootstrapper is more important than that.
> Plus, this is a volunteer project so it is hard to expect everyone to
> stay excited about solely fixing bugs for 6+ months. <smile/>
>
> You should look at what parts of the WiX toolset you depend one when
> judging stability. If you just want the core toolset (candle, light)
> then that code base is very stable in v3. Arguably it is more stable
> than it was in WiX v2 (certainly more bug fixes). Granted v3 can change
> from build to build so you might pick up a bug but we fix core toolset
> regressions very, very quickly. As for Votive, I don't think you can
> compare the stability differences from v2 to v3. V3 is so much more
> feature rich and useful. That said, there is a lot of effort going into
> Votive right now and there have been some nasty bugs with VS2005
> integration lately. Patching (pyro, torch)... those tools are quite
> stable but new so you might find new things. DTF, has been around for a
> long time and the bug fixes seem to reflect that.
>
> Ultimately, I believe that "stability" in the WiX toolset is measured by
> the number of changes going into the codebase. WiX v2 has no
> development so it is *extremely* stable. <smile/> WiX v3 is quite
> functional but there are bug fixes going in so we have to "reserve the
> right" to accidentally break stuff that works. Pick you risk profile
> and go from there.
>
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