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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Release proposition: Individual applications release
From:       Inge Wallin <inge () lysator ! liu ! se>
Date:       2008-05-03 20:59:21
Message-ID: 200805032259.21559.inge () lysator ! liu ! se
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On Saturday 03 May 2008 17:37:42 Cyrille Berger wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We have been trying to release KOffice 2.0 as a bundle for sometime, but it
> didn't work out since some important office applications are not ready, but
> at the same time some applications are getting closer to be ready. So
> Casper suggested to make individual application release. That would mean,
> once an application is ready we just release it. Then once KSpread, KWord
> and KPresenter have been released, we can go back to "normal" KOffice
> bundle packages, including all applications that are ready (probably for a
> 2.1 release, or 2.0.x "remix").
>
> == Issues ==
>
> That leaves a couple of issues :
>
>  * KoLibs : I don't think it's possible to freeze API/ABI of the libraries
> with the first "application release", so that probably means that we will
> have to release KoLibs, then a bunch of application tagged as "Stable",
> then other applications marked as "Beta" or "Alpha"
>
>  * having 1.6 applications along with 2.0 applications, the biggest proble
> is application data (and by that I mean data that is "shared", like the
> content of koffice/pics/hicolor koffice/servicetypes and koffice/templates
> ...), since libraries are versionned (and of course KoApp 1.6 + KoApp 2.0
> in the same prefix is out of question), it's probably something to discuss
> with packagers
>
> == Applications ==
>
> It should be up to the maintainer of an application to decide when he
> thinks his application is ready. But it would be nice to have an estimation
> of when your application is going to be in a beta state ?
>
> The application that looks the closest to a release is kspread (kplato
> doesn't seem to be far away as well), but there is no one commiting on it
> currently :/ And kchart isn't ready.
>
> Any thoughts ? Objections ?

An interesting suggestion, but I am doubtful.  There are two reasons for that:

1. Embedding

KOffice 1.x had very good embedding, i.e. you could basically embed any 
document type into any other by using KParts.  The same is true even more for 
KOffice 2.x, but the mechanism is different.  But there is absolutely no way 
to interact between the two versions, which means that a great part of the 
things that make KOffice a suite instead of a set of individual applications 
is lost.

2. Related to 1: User interaction

The interaction between the user and the application is rather different from 
KOffice 1.x to 2.x.  Many users will be confused, and all users will likely 
get a negative impression of KOffice.  

In short, I don't think it's worth it to shorten the wait by a few months 
through this method. I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
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