Re: GNOME 2.0 Schedule

[Stephen Browne <stephen browne sun com>]

Christian Schaller wrote:

> Eeeck! I don't know what you qualify as major UI breakages or changes,
> but if you are suggesting a UI freeze for GNOME between 2.0 and 3.0 I
> will have to protest.

No I'm not suggesting that at all.
It would be just nice if we could have as much done for 2.0 as possible
so that there are not a lot of major changes in the UI between 2.0 and
the 2/3 month down the road 2.0.1/2.2 version.

> Changing fast and having a low threshold for
> accepting improvements has always been a winning factor for Free
> Software. So while I could support a stance that we will not change the
> way the GNOME desktop works in a radical way for instance from todays
> way to a NextStepish interface except as part of major releases, I do
> think that we must allow more incremental improvements/changes to be
> added to desktop, like for instance a new panel implementation(which I
> would suspect to share many of the attributes of the current one if it
> where to appear) or improved gnome-utils for instance.

I don't have a problem with this, these small changes are not what I would
call significant UI changes.  Also I understand that any large changes will
always have a really good reason for them.  I guess I would just like to see
us make these large changes now before 2.0.  Give the UI some importance;
we are breaking just about everything else about GNOME from 1.4 to 2.0
so lets get the big UI changes out of the way at the same time? NO?

> If Sun feels such changes are not acceptable then I suggest Sun holds
> onto the old version for themselves, but asking the GNOME project as a
> whole to stop going forward will be the kiss of death if agreed to.

I am not asking for this, nor would I even try, nor would I want to, need to
or even remotely think that it would be a good idea.
I was only making some points about API and UI stability
that I though were of interest and should be considered in versioning
of the GNOME product.

> As for API changes I am much more sympatic to your view as long as it
> restricts itself to changes not additions, but then again that has  been
> the policy up to now anyway.

yes just changes. i.e. breaks

Stephen.