Re: Features vs. Time-based [Was: Gnome 2 infinity and beyond]

["Elijah Newren" <newren gmail com>]

On 4/20/06, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> > [1] Holy shit, just stop talking about version numbers at all. It
> > totally doesn't mean anything useful.
>
> I understand you and most developers do not think it is important but
> would it kill you to recognise that some people do* and it wouldn't hurt
> to try and pin down when it might happen to something less vague than
> "maybe later"?

Personally, I'm all in favor of "Never -- unless something big comes
up making it the only reasonable path forward."  Does that help?  ;-)

Now, if you're really interested in being able to improve marketing, I
have a suggestion for how to concretely improve things now:  Why not
collect feature plans that maintainers already have and trumpet those?
 Our roadmap (http://live.gnome.org/RoadMap) has 3 total things listed
for 2.16.  Developers have already listed some plans on this list --
maybe you could collect them.  And ping more maintainers individually
for more?  And write up some cool marketing materials based on it? 
(Marketing ain't my gig so I won't be doing this -- I'd rather be
working on bugfixes, or maybe some features for bugzilla)

But, even if we did bump version numbers for the sake of marketing, we
could just introduce a separate Gnome version just for marketing (and
still have most all packages use 2.x.y(.z) numbering).  And, if we're
doing it for marketing, why increase just one major number at a time? 
That's slow progress.  It should reflect the exponential growth of
improvement in Gnome, so let's make the next version 4.0, then 8.0
after that, then 16.0...  :-)

> No one is saying when if ever we might be ready.  You are not even saying
> we wont be ready for at least another 2 or 3 releases and to stop asking
> until then.  No one here seems to think it is strange to have the 2.x
> branch continue for updwards of 8 years but I cannot be the only one
> looking in thinking it is a bit weird**.

I find it a bit odd to cite someone who admittedly doesn't use Gnome
much (prefers blackbox and fluxbox) and merely wants to see the entire
UI redone because he is "tired of the Gnome UI (as stated in the
follow up at http://www.pthree.org/2006/04/18/points-of-clarification/)
 I believe he's specifically one of the people we should not target --
it would mean our target audience would be no one but early adopters. 
I'd go so far as to say that if he becomes a Gnome user, we're
probably failing (unless he changes, of course).  Anyway, it would
probably make more sense to cite the many people who have added
comments to http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero.  ;-)

> Hell at the very worst please just say nobody has any idea when if ever
> 3.0 will happen, and what might be needed before anyone can provide a
> credible answer?

I personally have no idea when if ever it will happen and don't have a
clue what would be needed before anyone can provide a credible answer.
 You probably don't like that, but it's an honest answer from me. 
Note though, that my entire email is just me speaking as an
individual.

Cheers,
Elijah