On Monday 19 January 2009, Heikki Johannes Junes wrote: > I would rather switch to Ubuntu-style numbering: Rosegarden YEAR.MONTH > Then you would notice immediately how old the program is and how long it > has been since the last version was released. That kind of numbering would > have some sense and it would emphasize the regular nature of releasing.
On this method of "breaking the myth of 2.0" or whatever I was just pondering about in the other message I just posted on this thread, I do have to say that I agree with the principle of breaking the chain completely and just coming up with new versions that are totally unrelated to any sense of history or legacy. You know this is newer than that, but the version number implies nothing about what changes users should expect, whether this should be a groundbreaking new release or just a little maintenance. I a real problem with that scheme though. We will never manage to adhere to a regular release schedule until we as a project can get major things done without Chris. We failed that test on this port in a rather spectacular way. We missed deadline after deadline, and then he finally saved the day again. How can we keep to a fixed and predictable release schedule under conditions like that? The only person who could promise to make that happen is Chris, and if he made the promise, I wouldn't believe him, based on his history. Even if he sincerely meant it at the time, he probably wouldn't be able to follow through. What will we do in September or whenever the appointed month is and Chris is caught up in whatever, wherever again? Other people can do releases, but there is always a lot of pending work on his plate that typically isn't getting done on any kind of regular or predictable schedule. Output from every developer here follows a feast or famine pattern, but nobody else plays such a central, critical role in whether something key happens or doesn't happen. I think we would have a far stronger and more viable project if we could continue moving at the same speed no matter who happened to be present at the moment, but we have failed that test so far, and I spent most of the last couple of years trying to accomplish exactly that. If he won't do it, if none of the rest of you, wherever the hell you happen to be today, will do it, then I'LL do it. I'll just run the whole damn thing myself, and get it done. We'll keep moving on. Wait. Damn. They didn't let me into CS for good reason after all, it turns out. I can do every job here by myself except for the only job that really matters in the end. I need people to work here, and I especially need Chris to work here, because all the rest of you and me added together equal half or maybe one quarter of one Chris. I hate to talk about replacing him, because that sounds like I want to get rid of him or something, and that's definitely not the case. I'd like to be able to carry on without him, and make his participation optional though. I have utterly failed at pursuing that aim, and here we still are, the Waiting On Chris Cannam Project. As such, I think trying to adhere to a fixed, regular release schedule is utterly pointless, and by extension, the Ubuntu versioning scheme seems dubious to me. But then everyone knows what an incredibly up-beat, cheerful optimist I've always been, huh? Especially in the last couple of years. My real life has been, well, it's been an exercise in learning what you can survive and still manage to be grateful that it wasn't worse. It still could have been a LOT worse than it was, and life really can be incredibly shitty, and unpleasant. I'm afraid all of this has made me a hopelessly grumpy pessimistic asshole. -- D. Michael McIntyre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-devel mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-devel
