[Xfce 4.8] Improving the Release process

[Auke Kok]

Stephan Arts wrote:
> Then we come to the labels, which indicate the maturity of the
> project. We are all familiar with ALPHA, BETA and Release Candidates.
> With 4.6, we did 1 ALPHA, 3 BETA's, 1 RC and 1 Final Release. All of
> these were predefined. I think we can say that this did not work out
> very well. As a different approach, release anyway. But if it is not
> BETA quality, just release another ALPHA. Releases makes people
> excited, why withold bugfixes just because we'd rather release it with
> one more fix. And when we know the next release will be done next
> month, and does not necessarily have to be a RC, this is not really a
> big deal anylonger.

I really propose that this "naming" convention to signify "stability" is 
dropped altogether. Please consider just making '-rc' releases until 
final. This works great for the kernel (for instance) and everyone knows 
what they are up to:

- an rc1 or rc2 is highly experimental etc..
- rc4's and later are good material for less skilled users to test

moreover, I agree there should be more intermediate rc's, getting stuff 
out under people's noses is the best way to move forward, and not let 
things rot for months.

Cheers,

Auke