I think one of the underlying issues is that Declude isn't following a
common version numbering scheme. Essentially they are using
Major-dot-Minor-dot-Interim numbering, but they are doing alphas and
betas as interim numbers that are never actually 'released'. This give
the impression that there were several other versions in between when
they were likely never publically released. To avoid confusion, they
should add an alpha/beta descriptor so that they aren't counting up the
numbers and making some feel like they are missing something. That way
for instance, the initial release of 4.x would be 4.0.0 instead of
4.0.3, and the latest release would be 4.2.0 as the first public
release. For the non-public releases they could number them 4.2.0 b1,
4.2.0 b2, etc., but only increment the first 3 parts when there is a
public release of a major, minor or interim release.
Aside from that, the release notes are surely not showing all of the
required information. I care much more about bug fixes in such notes
than new functionality. Many of us are not hopping on to the latest
release because of repeated bugs in newly designed functions or changes
to existing code, but this can also mean that bugs might be fixed in
these newer releases that we are not aware of them existing or being
fixed. There's nothing worse than spending hours and hours trying to
diagnose something that has already been identified and possibly fixed,
or dealing with an undocumented change of behavior. I think I spent
about 8 hours and suffered several IMail Queue Manager crashes in 8.15
HF2 due to 'killer messages', a flaw that was fixed in IMail 8.21 but
wasn't identified in their release notes as something that could crash
Queue Manager when certain message patterns were found. I would have
upgraded to 8.2x months before if I had known this, but instead it
negatively affected my service and required extensive amounts of time to
identify, document, report and work around.
Ipswitch is generally very good about release notes as companies go, and
it would be nice if Declude followed their lead. In the following KB
article, they cover pretty much all of the bases, and their release
notes section is extensive and also not too wordy. I read this stuff
intently. Also note the "Known Issues" section at the top of the document.
http://support.ipswitch.com/kb/IM-20060310-JH01.htm
I couldn't stress enough the importance of very detailed release notes
and owning up to every bug, no matter how minor or embarrassing it may
be. Administrators require this information in order to do their jobs
right, especially when it comes to E-mail since it is a hugely important
service as well as being the one most often exploited. I would also
deeply appreciate more attention being paid to fixing known bugs and
undesirable behavior with existing functionality.
Matt
John Shacklett wrote:
Yes, David, I understand, and thanks for the reply, but
[A] that's a passive process that requires that I remember to go out every
day and look at the release notes and see if there's been any addition, plus
[B] we've jumped from 4.1.0 to 4.2.3 [and from 3.1.0 to apparently 3.1.0??].
So that's not very satisfactory. In fact, it's less than neutral in terms of
overall satisfaction.
Good luck with the new and more effective process, I [for one] can't wait.
--
John S
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Barker
Sent: Thursday, 04 May 2006 11:26 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Declude.JunkMail] Version control and announcements.
John,
I understand your frustration and I am working on correcting this and
creating a process for this to be effective. Just a FYI you can always check
the release notes: http://www.declude.com/Articles.asp?ID=122
David B
www.declude.com
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