Next gnucash version numbers

[Christian Stimming]

Dear developers,

just to bring up this issue again in a more formal way: We are now clearly 
heading towards a release cycle of gnucash with gnome2. 

The old gnucash-1.8.x release series might have one last gnucash-1.8.12 
release which contains only bugfixes, but doesn't introduce new features or 
new/changed dependencies.

The new gnucash will have fundamentally different dependencies; it will have 
hopefully just as many features as the gnucash-1.8.x had, but for a small 
transition period we might even tolerate a slightly smaller feature set. 
Ultimatively, with the gnucash on gnome2 of course we will have a much 
improved ui and also hopefully many more features. 

However, the version number of the upcoming gnucash release cycle has not yet 
been finally decided. I propose that the eventual stable release series 
should begin with "gnucash 2.0.0" and then be continued as gnucash-2.0.x. The 
goal for gnucash-2.0.x is feature parity with 1.8.x but based on gnome2, as 
the name tells. If there are new features ready for 2.0.x then even better, 
but any not-quite-ready features will be deferred into a later 2.2.x release.

Additionally, I propose that we should start as soon as possible with 
pre-releases of the upcoming gnucash-2.0.0, which can still be in a quite 
buggy state. I propose that we make an extra release cycle from these, 
starting from "gnucash-1.9.0" and then be continued as gnucash-1.9.x. The 
1.9.x  series should be considered "alpha" or "beta" releases, i.e. not for 
production use but only for testing and bugfixes. 

In some very visionary moments I think we might even come out with this very 
first gnucash-1.9.0 alpha still this year. That would be mid-December 
(nothing will happen around Christmas, so it's either mid-December or 
January). The next 1.9.1 and so on should follow every 1-2 weeks. Those 
releases don't need to be tested as extensively as the stable ones are; they 
are really only supposed for testing by people who don't want to deal with 
CVS. IIRC there has been some talk about automating this task already; that's 
even better.

Thoughts? Comments?

Christian