C++ patch or .desktop file for desktop icons

[Daniel Ostrow]

On Sun, 2006-07-30 at 23:49 -0700, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
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> Daniel Ostrow wrote:
> > <snip>
> >> You know, we might benefit from a GNOME style release timetable. At any  
> >> given time about two thirds of svn head is rock solid stability-wise, so I  
> >> suspect getting a release out every 6 months may not as hard as we think  
> >> it is.
> > </snip>
> > 
> > A large portion of the reasoning behind avoiding a standard release
> > schedule is guaranteeing that the individuals responsible for the
> > release are present and free at that time and have had enough time to
> > ensure the stability of their product. Take this from someone who
> > participates in Gentoo's release schedule every six months. The way to
> > intelligently get around this is to have a designated release
> > coordinator who doesn't have to worry about coding anything him or
> > herself that isn't implicitly release related (read tools needed to
> > perform the release).
> 
> That's all well and good, but we don't have the resources that either
> GNOME or Gentoo have.  Not to besmirch the non-coding help we've gotten,
> but I believe on one occasion when we tried to have a non-coder act as
> release coordinator, he himself wasn't available during the next
> release.  That's no one's fault; people just have more important things
> to do in their everyday lives sometimes.
> 
> It would be nice if we released more often, sure.  I think the problem
> isn't really not having the time to do the releases, it's that we can't
> make ourselves stop.  It's the "one more feature" mentality, and we
> reinforce it as we go along.  I know I think, "but if I don't get this
> feature in before 4.4, it'll be at least another 14-16 months before
> this feature gets into stable 4.6."  It's self-feeding.  If we were to
> do a stable release every 6 months, it wouldn't be so bad: "eh, I can't
> get this finished now, but it'll be in the next stable in 6 months."
> 
> I guess the question is... can we do that?  After we get 4.4 out the
> door, can we really say, "hey, 4.6 is coming out in 6 months, no matter
> how many or few features we get to put in".  And really, SVN trunk
> doesn't need to be rock-stable when we do that.  That's what the betas
> and the RCs are for, to stabilise the development branch.
> 
> I dunno if things will actually change, and, to be honest, I don't
> really care all that much either way.

No worries, just wanted to offer my time in a way that I could. In the
end the ultimate goal should be making your lives easier as you are the
ones that ultimately bring this great software to the table. As I said,
fixed releases would be a major culture shift and it would have to be
one universally accepted by all of the XFCE team. I was not trying to
imply one way or another which way would be better or for that matter
whether a release cycle was good for XFCE at all. All I was intending
was to provide options and insight into such a process as I have gone
through it a few times.

Thanks,

--Dan