[kde-ev-marketing] Release dates/nomenclature

[Kenneth Wimer]

Hi,

Just to keep things in perspective, I saw this today:

(at the bottom)

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070827

--
Ken

On Tuesday 28 August 2007 00:54:47 Troy Unrau wrote:
> So, I've brought this proposal up once before, but here it is again
> (in more concrete form, and no misleading terminology). This email
> will make some people unhappy since it indicates that we will be
> missing the Oct23rd date which is a nice date for historical reasons
> only (KDE 2.0 was released on Oct 23rd as well).
>
> We will not be able to obtain a decent release on Oct 23rd despite
> everyone's best wishes, including my own. Hell, the plasma panel will
> miss this, the last beta, and unless the extra beta is inserted, will
> never see the panel in a beta series release before Oct 23rd.
>
> So here are the adjustments I'd like to see made, on behalf of the
> marketing working group, and for the general sanity of having a beta
> with a mostly-functioning plasma before we freeze:
>
> 1) We add another beta into the release cycle pushing the release
> candidates back. This ensures that we actually have a beta with the
> plasma panel and not kicker.
> 2) We add an additional two RC's (for a total of 4 RCs) to ensure that
> the code works, and isn't a festering dung-heap when we release it.
> 3) We call the Nov 22nd RC3 as the "KDE 4 Technology Platform
> Release". We then take the extra month afforded by the additional RCs
> for documentation, translations, unit tests, artwork and bugfixes ONLY
> (deep freeze).
> 4) We tag 4.0.0 just before Christmas, have a relatively quiet
> announcement of 4.0.0 'being tagged', branch and reopen trunk.
> 5) We announce the 4.0.0 release January 17th in Mountain View. The
> distros have had four weeks to get a handle on it and they all have
> packages ready to use. Some initial reviews and such will already be
> live before our announcement.
>
> The new schedule would look like:
>
> September 25: 3.94 (KDE 4.0 Beta3)
> October 23: Total Release Freeze
> October 25: 3.96 (KDE 4.0 RC1)
> November 8: 3.97 (KDE 4.0 RC2)
> November 22: 3.98 (KDE 4.0 Technology Platform Release a.k.a. RC3)
> December 6: 3.99 (KDE 4.0 RC4)
> December 20: 4.0.0 tagged, is unannounced except to distros-- 4.0.x
> branched, trunk unfreezes...
> January 17: 4.0.0 announcement and release party
>
> If it makes you happy, think of the Technology Platform Release as
> RC3, only we will at this point start to tell early adopters that it's
> ready, and distros that like to live on the edge a little can use it.
>
> Here's why we care, in marketing, for the extra beta and RC's, even
> though that means 4.0.0 is pushed back:
> - stability is important - we can have all the cool features in the
> world, but when we ship 4.0 out the door and the bad reviews come in
> due to instability, we will have a long uphill battle against the
> negative public perception that 4.0 is buggy.  If we can pull off a
> smooth 4.0 release, we can avoid much of the bad publicity.
> - first impressions are important - if we don't have a relatively
> polished release, the first reviews will be bad, and we'll not have a
> drove of users trying out KDE for the first time.  These reviews have
> to be good for users to pay attention.
> - people on IRC are calling this week's beta as alpha4 because of the
> quality. Seriously folks, it's pretty bad. Some KDE community members
> are recommending against using 4.0 already are claiming that they
> won't even use it themselves. This is terrible for convincing people
> to migrate early - having our own community complaining about the
> release looks terrible.
>
> People will argue that a major point-oh release is never stable, but
> really folks, can't we afford two extra months to make it worth
> releasing? If anyone honestly believes that we'll need more than the
> extra two months, we will need to reschedule the release party now
> before flights are booked.
>
> Cheers folks