Re: Did GNOME go 1.0 too early?

[Damien Miller <dmiller ilogic com au>]

On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Andy Kahn wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 04, 1999 at 04:38:12AM +0100, Nils Jeppe wrote:
> > Because that way they could release it on Linux World Expo? Ride on the
> > wave of media attention that's gonna get them?
> 
> i second this opinion and think riding the hype was the primary
> goal of this release.

I think it sad that free software, in its rush to gain commercial
acceptance, is sacrificing one of its core strengths. Free software
has been traditionally released "when it's ready", not "when a
media-rich conference is on" or "in time for the RH6.0 code freeze".

Rushing out software before it is ready has given us linux-2.2.0 (an
embarrassment by Linus' own account) and now GNOME-1.0.

I, and presumably many others, were waiting for the -pre releases to
really beat on and find bugs. Instead we got a release with new bugs
(eg #433).

Is there any *technical* reason that GNOME did not undergo any pre-1.0
releases?

Regards,
Damien Miller

--
| "Bombay is 250ms from New York in the new world order" - Alan Cox
| Damien Miller - http://www.ilogic.com.au/~dmiller
| Email: dmiller@ilogic.com.au (home) -or- damien@ibs.com.au (work)