[RFC] Draft Roadmap for KDE 4.0

[Tom Albers]

Hi all,

Sebas pointed out that we need to setup a roadmap to the KDE4 release. As I think setting deadlines will actual help to reach goals, I've taken the time to setup a draft roadmap to KDE4. 

I've no experience in release schedules nor do I know the state of kdelibs or any other kde4 module, but I feel a draft document makes discussing things much easier. So here comes a draft schedule, lets work on the points and dates and publish it after that on the current Techbase page.


kdelibs soft api freeze + alpha1 release		- 2 April
This is the the point where kdelibs api is frozen. That means that the classes and interfaces are not allowed to change anymore. That means the end of the famous bic Mondays.

If for one reason you feel the api should change, you need to post a kdelibs api exception request to kde-core-devel with the reason and the code. If there are no objections after a week, you can commit the changes, but all the kde main modules must compile and work as expected. 

kdelibs is also i18n frozen, exceptions can be asked on kde-i18n mailinglist. The release will not include translations.


feature freeze					- 2 may
After this date the kde main modules are frozen for new features. No new features are allowed, the focus is from now on on stabilizing the applications and fix all bugs. This is also the date that all the maintainers of the main kde modules need to indicate if they will follow this schedule or will divert and will not be released together with kde 4.0.


message freeze					- 2 June
After this date the main modules are frozen for new messages. Exceptions can be asked on kde-i18n mailinglist.


beta cycle starts					- 2 Juli