All nightly builds are totally available for anyone who wants them - http://build.ofbiz.org . I guess this goes back to a general target market question - are we trying to get people to join the community as developers or business users? Seems to me having been around here for a good long while, that this community is 95% developer related and not ready for simple business users to be able to download and start it up as if this is Joomla.

I'm all for changing strategy, but until we have a MUCH better pre- canned approach, that walks the users thru the process and makes it super simple to install, be collect their data, start up the application and choose between a number of different templates and workflow, then we should do what we do best - which is get techies involved to make the project better.

Now, once we have what I described above, which is something that we're working on daily, then I think that we need to shift to something that is more stable. At this point, without more unit tests in the project and people being committed to that as a part of their daily workflow - then I don't really think that release 9.04 is any more stable than the trunk (the community is super responsive to bugs being created) - it just doesn't have the new technology.

My two cents.

Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595

On Aug 16, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:

Hi Jacques:
Thanks for this update. I appreciate and respect the time it takes you to help me sort through this issue.

I'm still a little confused (and I don't see any mention of this in http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan) about why the decision to make the "ready-made" package a nightly build. For new users such as those who would prefer to download the zip "because they don't want or have not the skill to install", wouldn't it make more sense from both project support (that is, answering all those annoying newbie questions) and public relations (that is, not having to answer all those annoying newbie questions or explaining why something doesn't work as advertised) points of view, to have this point to the last pre-built "stable" release, instead of a nightly build?

Maybe we could open this up as a discussion point on the list? I'm really interested in the OFBiz project getting to a point where I can tell prospective users: "Download this stable version. Here's what you get. If what you got isn't what was advertised, then either I screwed up and set your expectations incorrectly, or there is a bug in the code." Right now, I can't do that. I have no idea what a stable release should contain or what I should be telling my prospects.

Just my 2 cents.
Ruth

Jacques Le Roux wrote:
I just made a link fix at http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Source+Repository+and+Access (Alternative download was still pointing to an HWM server) I think it's explained there : some people prefer to dowload a zip because they don't want or have not the skill to install Subversion.

BTW We have received a complaint recently about putting svn artifacts in our zip. I'm not quite sure but if I remember well it was a decision to put them there to facilitate future svn update for people convinced by OFBiz. About this subject I'd like to answer this to Tony Stevenson could PMC members confirms please. If it's not the reason, I presume we
were leasy about using svn export :o)

Jacques


From: "Ruth Hoffman" <[email protected]>
Thanks Jacques:
I had read this in the past and never really given it much thought. My bad. Anyhow, rereading it now, it is time for me to ask
this question:

Could you or someone else within the project comment on how this strategy fits with the decision to offer nightly builds as the
primary download/distribution offering [website button download]?

Just curious.
Ruth

Jacques Le Roux wrote:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan

Jacques

From: "Ruth Hoffman" <[email protected]>
Does this exist: an articulated release strategy for the OFBiz project? If so, could someone point me to it?

TIA
Ruth









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