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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: 2.2 RELEASE SCHEDULE (update)
From:       Neil Stevens <multivac () fcmail ! com>
Date:       2001-03-07 2:04:11
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On Tuesday 06 March 2001 03:00 pm, Dawit Alemayehu wrote:
> I urge you to please consider this from the average Joe's prespective. 
> I am not worried about the developers since most of us can manage  it, I
> think. However if average joe who likes to send bug reports just updated
> to 2.1.1 the week of release, is (s)he likely going to update to beta1 ?
>  What would be the purpose of beta1 then ?  I mean people in the
> "in-circle" probably have tested this stuff already since they get daily
> updates.

There are plenty of in-circle people (meaning people who try to follow KDE 
development) who can't or won't follow day-to-day CVS.  Some people simply 
lack the time or stamina to wade through all the bugs and glitches that 
come from following the CVS HEAD.  Others lack the bandwidth, cpu, or 
background knowledge to compile regularly, and thus have to rely upon 
using periodic quasi-stable snapshots.  Beta releases let everyone know 
that the code there is supposed to almost work, so it's safe to sink the 
time and energy to compile and test.

> Anyways, IMHO the 2.2 beta1 temporary freeze should occur the same day
> 2.1.1 comes out.  This would only push back everything only by a week,
> but it is significant in that there is a two week time frame b/n 2.2
> beta1 and 2.1.1 which should give people some breezing room and the
> ability to have worked with both 2.1.1 and 2.2.

The betas increase the testing, so the release ends up more stable.  
Sacrificing a couple of weeks for a more stable release is a reasonable 
tradeoff, I'd say.

I also suggest that the betas are good psychologically for developers.  
They keep us remembering that one of these days there's going to be a 
freeze, so we must wrap things up.  It's better to suffer the slight delay 
and inconvenience of a release, than to suffer the huge delays from 
unbounded development, or an even larger rash of "Can we move the tag on 
xxx.cpp?  This a showstopper bug" requests.

> Just my $0.02 worth.

likewise.

-- 
Neil Stevens
multivac@fcmail.com
neil@qualityassistant.com

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