thinking ahead to 4.5: features or polish?

[Asraniel]

sounds reasonable. a little sad that ubuntu 10.04 LTS will release kde 4.4, 
but on the same time a more fix orientated 4.5 will mean more backports to 4.4, 
and ubuntu will probably ship 4.4.2 (or 3). so that sounds nice.
it also means a polished kde 4.5 will compete with gnome 3.0 which now has 
been delayed to september 2010.

now only lets hope my master studies get more relaxing so i can code more

greetings

beat

Am Mittwoch 04 November 2009 00.41:48 schrieb Aaron J. Seigo:
> hi all ..
> 
> i spent some time today thinking about challenges as well as opportunities
> that exist for our little Plasma baby who is growing up at an amazing pace.
> 
> just to give you an idea of where we're at in terms of raw code production,
> here are some sloccount counts:
> 
> kdelibs: 42,121
> runtime: 4,190
> workspace: 83,332
> addons: 55,792
> 
> and we have so many little buds of progress elsewhere too:
> 
> kdereview: 8,365
> media center components: 6,608
> plasmate: 4,518
> networkmanager: 27,029
> lionmail: 2,009
> mobile shell: 1,147
> 
> we have been pounding out feature packed release after feature packed
>  release and 4.4 will be no different in that regard.
> 
> of course, it's not the only way we're growing. were also growing the user
> base as more of our desktop users come online and we start to reach out
>  into new areas of the market such as netbooks and phones. we're also
>  growing in *dum de dum dum* bug count. right now we have 745 open bug
>  reports, not counting wishlist items. that's not as bad as it might sound;
>  it's somewhere around one bug per 240 lines of code. but it's still
>  substantial.
> 
> as i mentioned at T3, plasma has developed a bit of a rhythm from release
>  to release: January brings lots of new features (esp big ones) and some
>  polish, July brings lots of polish and some new features (mostly smaller
>  ones).
> 
> 4.4 will certainly be a big feature release: netbook, remote plasmoids, new
> widget explorer, containment action plugins, lots more javascript in a
>  number of places, nepomuk integration .... but what about 4.5?
> 
> well, i'm seriously considering putting a moratorium on new features in 4.5
> and instead focusing on making it a polishing release.
> 
> when we started out with KDE 4, one of our goals was to create an object of
> desire that people would pick over the "high end competition" such as
>  MacOS. we achieved so much towards that goal, and now our biggest sore
>  points are the little details.
> 
> such a polishing release would consist of:
> 
> * completing features that have made it thus far in a "mostly done" state
>  but not quite finished
> 
> * cataloging and improving families of (mis-)features like this:
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Plasmoid-Issues
> 
> * a concentration on killing bugs right from the start of the release cycle
> 
> * measuring memory and cpu performance and improving on both
> 
> * tightening down our artwork and configuration UIs for consistency and
>  extra sparkle
> 
> if we go ahead with this, then our pre-release IRC meetings and T4 would be
> the where we would mark out our targets and decide how to tackle them.
> 
> my concerns in such a move are:
> 
> * it would destroy people's desire to work on plasma by making it more
>  boring and difficult than it currently is with all the emphasis on great
>  new things
> 
> * people would ignore this set of goals and work on features anyways,
> splitting our community up and causing some tensions we don't have with our
> "wide open" policy
> 
> * we wouldn't have enough to show at the end of it for our users to go
>  "wow" over
> 
> if we decide that this is something we would like to take on, we would need
>  to make it fun and cool to do this hard work. i'd be sure to share bug
>  count stats, performance measurements and track our goals on a regular
>  basis to keep us moving. if new people came along with new features or we
>  found we Really, Really(tm) needed something (e.g. if we got some kick ass
>  bluetooth work donated), we'd have to be flexible enough to allow some of
>  that to happen but disciplined enough not to get sidetracked ourselves.
> 
> now, i'm still working through all of the implications of this and really
> haven't decided yet whether it's the best of ideas yet. and it would
> absolutely require that the overwhelming majority of our team here would
>  want to see this through.
> 
> so i put the question to you: what do you think? should we do this? should
>  we not? why? why not?
> 
> (and just to head off all the "oh yes, please do!" comments from the people
>  on the list here who follow the threads but who aren't active contributors
>  to some part of plasma: let's keep this discussion to those who are
>  working on the code and artwork for now. thanks :)
>