Are there any open source projects that are not driven by a single company that successfully implement feature freeze releases AND would have the complexity of feature advancements that OFBiz does (this would exclude most, if not all, Apache projects as most of them are one trick ponies, so to speak)? If there are, maybe we should see how they best accopmlish this.
OFBiz is complex, but I don't think it's *that* much of an outlier. The Linux kernel has a lot of complex subsystems that need to interact. Going one step further, 'distribution' type projects (FreeBSD, that includes the kernel and user space, or something like Debian or Ubuntu that concentrates on aggregating the pieces), have to contend with constantly changing pieces of the system, and attempting to freeze a stable set. Different from OFBiz, but I think it's not an impossible problem. Personally, I think a huge win would be to increase the amount of automated regression testing, but that's certainly an effort. I think it's partially an issue of time allocation - it seems that currently, most time is spent 'going forward' rather than solidifying, testing, and so on. I have the utmost confidence that were the guys behind OFBiz to change their focus some, they would do the same excellent job in cutting stable releases. But it's their call... -- David N. Welton - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/ Linux, Open Source Consulting - http://www.dedasys.com/
