To: l10n, releases CC: mac-porting Hello everyone :)
I am very concerned about the current three-month release interval. When I first arrived here, with our fairly complete interface translation, I was met on the lists with a mélange of information about impending version 2.0.4 and upcoming version 2.1. That was confusing, and I had to filter out all the stuff about 2.0.4 and focus on 2.1.
2.1 has just been officially released, but there are still QA issues for different teams and architectures. I hope to release our (vi) 2.1 builds fairly soon, but there is at least one pan-language stopper bug (on Mac Intel), and a fair bit of specific work to do yet.
And the translation deadline for OpenOffice.org 2.2 is January 18th, only a month away!
So what do I do? Abandon 2.1 and work on the translation updates for 2.2? Finish 2.1 and not be ready for 2.2?
We have a set of major goals for 2.2, including translating all the Help section (nearly half a million words) and improving support information (docs, website, spellchecker etc.) in general. On this time-scale, we'll be lucky if we get even the interface update in.
I have participated in a discussion on the releases list about changing the release interval to six months. What is the status of that discussion?
It's essential that we construct a more realistic release schedule, or we are going to be faced with the choice of releasing buggy builds, or not releasing at all. We simply need more time to create a high-quality product.
OpenOffice.org is far too complex a product to release every three months. It should compare itself, not with single-program projects, but with complex multi-app projects like the systems: GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Debian.
I recommend comparison with Debian, which has a culture of excellence. Debian "Etch" will be released about 18 months after Debian "Sarge". Meanwhile, users can get early builds, but the official release has been polished and debugged very thoroughly. My team had its first Debian translation basically ready over a year ago, and people have been using it, but the extra time gave us the chance to QA our translation extensively, and to translate support materials. I will be happy and proud to release Debian officially in Vietnamese for the first time. But I can only release our initial OpenOffice.org translation (2.1) by seriously compromising the quality of version 2.2. Or release 2.2. by dropping 2.1.
We need action on this. I for one refuse to push out releases on this schedule. It doesn't allow sufficient time to do a quality job. It's sloppy and unprofessional. Our users deserve better than this.
Please extend the release interval to six months minimum. Do it now.from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN
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