[Kexi-devel] The message about Calligra 3.x

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

On 30 April 2015 at 23:24, Alan Horkan <alanhorkan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I follow the mailing list digest and I love your work but any 3.x release
> that doesn't fully replace 2.x will cause confusion. Tread cautiously. I
> think you already know this.

Thanks for sharing this, Alan.

> I don't have a better answer, there may be no right answer but at the very
> least you will definitely need to unequivocally warn users to stick with
> 2.x.x until you stop doing 2.x release and you will probably still suffer
> complaints about regressions.

Yes, this is the reason for my thinking about simple approaches such
as the explicit Beta status for 3.0.

> (At the moment I'm running a Linux netbook that is too small for Krita and
> occasionally a windows xp box that is too old for Krita).
>
> Thanks for the software but don't under estimate how confusing this all can
> be to users outside the process.

The explicit sharing of the status hopefully avoids this type of
confusion. Stable 3.0 version would be impossible to get even if you
build from the source code.
The "beta" sign would be a visible part of the UI, announcement's
title and the first sentence.

Finally, this would keep more users inside of the process. The process
by design includes their participation.

The proposal isn't even something like a departure from the versioning
theme, it's _skipping_ the stable release -- since _know_ in advance
shouldn't be labeled stable, and wouldn't replace 2.x. In an important
aspect it's like we just have done this week with 2.9.3 [1].

I think we can't help those confused by public existence of Betas. The
practice of publishing Betas isn't something particularly new or
reserved for FOSS. What we can do is to play well and be open about
the development process.

[1] https://www.calligra.org/news/2-9-3-cancelled/

-- 
regards, Jaroslaw Staniek

KDE:
: A world-wide network of software engineers, artists, writers, translators
: and facilitators committed to Free Software development - http://kde.org
Calligra Suite:
: A graphic art and office suite - http://calligra.org
Kexi:
: A visual database apps builder - http://calligra.org/kexi
Qt Certified Specialist:
: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek