Am Samstag, 21. Oktober 2006 16:43 schrieb Asger Ottar Alstrup:

> We decide the following rules to bring things back on track:
> 
> 
>      ** NO NEW FEATURES ARE ALLOWED FROM RIGHT NOW **

I do not agree with this one if it means all new features, not just those 
that require changes to the core.

>      ** NO MORE CLEAN-UP IS ALLOWED FROM RIGHT NOW **

I agree with this one. That should have been disallowed far earlier.

>      ** ONLY ONGOING WORK CAN CONTINUE FROM RIGHT NOW **
> 
> 
> So ongoing work like unicode, change tracking, and multiple windows can 
> continue. Other work has to wait, including performance work.
> 
> Once things are back to working, 1.5 should be released. It might be a 
> slow release, it might not support the encodings people want, but at 
> least it will be useful for most people that use LyX now. Those that are 
> unhappy about the release will have to settle with 1.4, or wait until 
> 1.6 is released.
> 
> When 1.5 is released, development can open again for 1.6, and stuff like 
> performance and new encodings can be added.
> 
> We hope you will agree with this, and understand that we won't have to 
> do the drastic thing we had to do with 0.13 where we dropped years of 
> development and started over again from a stable base.

I partially do not agree, and I feel betrayed: A long time everything is 
allowed, and then from one day to the other we are in a freeze. Basic 
functionality like latex encodings that has been working in previous 
releases is not allowed to come back, but new features like multiple 
windows are allowed to be finished.

This decision is silly IMHO, and it will also give bad press if release n+1 
removes some features that were available in release n.

I would have done different things in a different order if it would have 
been clear that this freeze comes now. For example I have several smaller 
changes in the pipeline that are pretty safe, e.g. some of the bugs marked 
with fileformat.
If that decision is a final one then don't expect any further 1.5 work from 
me.

> In a situation where LyX becomes worse every other day, we can not 
> afford the luxury of setting an ambitious goal for the release. We will 
> have to disappoint some people's expectations for the sake of not 
> loosing the progress that has been made.

Maybe you should also talk about why the current state is like it is. And 
maybe some of you should have a look on the many open bugs in 1.4. Fixing 
these has had a far too low priority IMO. 1.4 was released with some known 
regressions wrt 1.3. Now it looks like 1.5 will be released with even more 
regressions + the already existing 1.4 bugs. Try to explain that to any 
user. I would not be able to do so.


Georg

Reply via email to