Hello. There seems to be a bit of misconception about what was asked. This thread has turned from the initial request, to a debate about what would be the right version number for Blender. I apologize if I "fueled the fire" of that, the original question remains, though. Educators, like myself, and authors of books and DVDs that will help understand Blender are in need of knowing what the program will be called. It's not a matter of preferences, it's a matter of having a clear way to refer to the program and being able to prepare material that refers to Blender in the *proper* way. This is of benefit for everybody. It seems that some developer find the issue unimportant or irrelevant. Be assured that it's not. If you worked on just one release of a product, not a program, a product, in the software industry you should know how much time and care is spent in taking that decision.
If you spend hours and hours in coding for Blender you should care if people will benefit from the fruit of so much effort. It's the role of people like me to spread the word and help users adopt Blender. At the end it's for the benefit of everybody. I dedicate two full days a week to promoting Blender. This includes finding a good topic for a tutorial, recording it, editing it, publishing it at Creative COW, blogging about it, respond to the forum requests, etc. Some of the feedback that I received included "I had Blender for a year, could not figure it out, now I can, thanks to your tutorials" or "I thought I could never use 3D, now you made it accessible for me". I'm not bragging about it, I mention it because the final point of making a program is to have people using it. Otherwise all that coding is pointless. Preaching to the choir can be very rewarding but it doesn't go that far. There is a difference between an Array, a List or a Dictionary. You, as a developer, would not like ambiguity in that. Educators and users of your program don't like a similar ambiguity in how to refer to the darn program. Want to call it 2.6? Fine, but let's decide here and now how the program will be known to the public at large. Development versions don't count in that scheme. I have been telling people to stay clear from development versions because they are not production quality. But there is a point when the program ends the Beta phase and is released. That is what the public at large will need to use. What should we call it? It's not a hard decision or one that conflicts with the development. We are at a point where this is becoming an issue. Every day. Let's make a decision, update the websites and stick to the plan. It will give a sense of stability, a sense of what to expect and it will provide a clear way to refer to the program. What you do, as a developer, is crucial and important. What we do, as educators, is important too. When you dismiss this issue as "not important" you are belittling our effort and undermining endless hours of planning and design on how to make the future version of Blender a success. We are not asking for new features, we are just in need to have one simple "label" decided, possibly in a week or so. Thanks for your time. Cheers. --- Paolo Ciccone www.preta3d.com www.paolociccone.com _______________________________________________ Bf-committers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
