What about release plans for 2.2.0?

[Nathan Buchanan]

On 6/15/07, Beth Leonard <beth at oasis.slimy.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 12:21:25PM +0200, Christian Stimming wrote:
> > What do we do with our release plans for a 2.2.0 release? We planned
> > that release for the upcoming weekend [1], but currently the
> > development has slowed significantly. Even more importantly, the PR
> > Planning [2] has made almost zero progress, but we would need at least
> > a week of work there before we have enough PR material for the Windows
> > release.


I'll try to get working on the PR stuff a bit. These past few weeks have
been a bit hectic for me.

[...]
> > More thoughts? Decisions?
> >
> > I'm unsure, really. I'd prefer to have 2.2.0 by now, but I have to
> > admit I won't have much time dealing with Windows bugs after that. If
> > there is a majority to have 2.2.0 by now, I'd happily deal with the PR
> > work; however, if we prefer to delay it, then I'd also happily delay
> > the PR work as well.


I think that delaying this release is the worse option. We are already
getting a lot of interest in the dev releases (see below) - If we wait too
much longer I think the 2.1.x series will start to be used as a stable
version by the windows community, regardless.

I think we should take the few weeks to get 2.2.0 ready and released. As you
mention, it has been a while since the last stable release.

Do we currently have any idea how many people are using the Windows
> version?


We have a reasonably stable download rate of about 200 downloads a day, so
it's definitely getting some interest.
http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=192&ugn=gnucash&type=prdownload&mode=60day&package_id=5582&release_id=513015&file_id=1191940
As for dedicated users, I can't say.

Have all of the major use-cases been exercised by someone
> who knows what they're doing?  If not, no matter when you release it,
> I'd recommend advertising the release candidate Windows version to
> the current user base and asking people who know how GnuCash is supposed
> to work to try it under windows.  Do this before having a major PR
> campaign to the news sources for the actual stable release.


With luck, the bug reports that come in from the release candidate(s)
> from the current user base will be helpful and reproducible, as opposed
> to the type of bug reports one can imagine getting from the typical
> windows user.  When those have been dealt with, then consider when to
> release 2.2.0.
>
> I know that announcements have been made to the user list, but they
> haven't been "release candidates" yet.  When dealing with financial
> data, many people don't like to make the switch until they're fairly
> certain it's stable.


 I like this idea - Could we indicate that 2.1.4 is intended to be a
"release candidate"? If that doesn't draw in more testers, I don't know what
will.

Nathan