Discussion about 4.1 timeframe (was Re: What to do about Kompare?)

[Mauricio Piacentini]

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> of course that's what we always used to do. 2.0 and 4.0 have been the only two 
> exceptions i can think of since i've been around the project.

Yes, this was something we talked about during last Akademy, when there 
was the "suggestion" to move to 6 months cycle. We already have 
schedule-based releases in the 3.x series, but this methodology is of 
course not possible on major revamps like 4.0. There is nothing new with 
this suggestion, I know. It is just the basic idea: for 4.0 onwards it 
would be better for us to return to this mode of operation.

> there's also the issue of Qt 4.4 to keep in mind. it will bring a number of 
> significant strides forward that we will likely want to take quick advantage 
> of, and it comes out in Q1 (more towards the end of Q1 than the beginning).

That is certainly something to be considered when deciding the schedule. 
Better yet if we can work in defining a pattern to follow, imo.

> for certain values of "working". for at least one major project, there was an 
> immediate and noticeable decline in both mailing list traffic and commit 
> rates when a 6 month cycle was adopted.

Interesting. I wonder if the problem here is the excess of management 
perhaps? By this I mean that windows to commit new features and work on 
them are relatively small compared to the window for 
stabilizing/translating. This is something probably difficult to fine 
tune, and if we can benefit from what others have learned it is a good 
way to avoid repeating the same mistakes!

> i'd sooner see us (loosely) sync along with the Qt dev cycle (which has become 
> much more regular, ~9 month per release) to keep a steady flow of feature / 
> bug fixes going between KDE and Qt.

Ok, keeping a pace with Qt actually makes more sense than any other 
(arbitrary by nature) decision. Also, with 4.0 out, we will resume the 
cycle of new applications going to playground or maybe kdeapps, and then 
  waiting to be picked for inclusion in the main releases or extragear. 
This is something we should consider maybe, with feedback from TT.

And of course, everything will be magically better after 4.0 is out :)

Regards,
Mauricio Piacentini