[Kopete-devel] Post 3.2 Kopete and packagers

[Martijn Klingens]

On Tuesday 25 November 2003 22:52, Jason Keirstead wrote:
> On November 25, 2003 05:14 pm, Martijn Klingens wrote:
> > Sure, we could (and probably should) have a release cycle for Kopete as
> > well. 
 Until now we didn't really have a release _cycle_, we just
> > implemented stuff and when the new stuff was considered finished we began
> > evaluating a new release. And while having a more formal Kopete release
> > cycle is a good thing, how is it better to use the KDE release cycle
> > rather than having our own at twice the rate? As long as you have a cycle
> > in the first place it's ok.
>
> Not really. The shorter the cycle is the less stuff you get to do properly
> because of the frequent freezings.

s/the less stuff you get to do properly/the less stuff you get to do/

This is obvious because the cycle is shorter. The rest you do for the next 
release. In the end you have done the same amount of work. Additionally 
you've got a lot of valuable feedback on the first half by time you finish 
the second half, so that feedback can already be incorporated.

The word "properly" doesn't come into play here. The length of the cycle 
doesn't really matter for that, it's more the way we manage (or mismanage ;-) 
our releases, but that's a separate issue.

> Nothing is ever perfect the first time. The more time you have to poke
> at it the better it will be for the users.

Nothing beats user feedback though. As long as it's stable and at least mostly 
bug free, that is. But _that_ can be achieved with two releases as well.

> I have been CC'ing all these messages to both Kopete-devel and core-devel
> because it will impact KDE greatly. A decision needs to be made on this
> _NOW_ as Zack and Rob keep saying. Since so many developers are disagreeing
> there needs to be a vote or something, and it needs to be done very soon.

On whether to have interim releases or not? :-P

I don't think kde-core-devel cares a whole lot about that, and right they are. 
It's of importance to packaging and to ourselves, but certainly not to 
core-devel.

And as far as packaging is affected, we still have some 4 months or so to 
decide and the worst that can happen is that the interim release isn't picked 
up because it is hard to create separate packages. Well, that's unfortunate, 
but still enlarges the user base with the people who build from source, so 
whatever way you put it, we certainly don't lose.

-- 
Martijn