Subject: Re: 1.0 features [was Re: Call for writers]
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Tue May 01 2001 - 16:42:56 CDT
At 04:49 PM 4/30/01 +0100, Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>I share the view expressed by rms in an earlier message that Abi
>still lacks some essential features, and that releasing 1.0 without
>them could do us more harm than good.
I want to take this claim seriously, but I'm not sure I understand where the
harm comes from.
>no other
>release of AW, be it 2.0, 5.0, or 2010 is likely to receive that much
>attention as 1.0 (think of the release of Windows 98, which was
>really a re-release of Win 95; in spite of MS efforts it attracted only
>a fraction of the attention that Win 95 did). Thus, I would be much
>happier if we held back until tables and footnotes are in place.
I think it might help to think of some different precedents here. Don't
think about the difference between Windows 95 and 98 -- that was (quite
rightly, IMHO) seen as an incremental upgrade.
Instead, think about the following product versions:
Word 1.0 --> Word 2.0 --> Word 6.0 --> Word 95
Windows 1.0 --> Windows 2.0 --> Windows 3.0 --> Windows 3.1
Netscape 0.9 --> Netscape 1.0 --> Netscape 1.1 --> Netscape 2.0
Linux 0.8 --> Linux 1.0 --> Linux 2.0 --> Linux 2.4
etc.
I'll claim that, by now, everyone knows what it means to ship or use a 1.0
product. (The most amusing part of Randy's suggestion is, in fact, how he
plays with this notion.)
The whole point of shipping it is to start letting the world know that
here's a usable product that you might really want. Then you go right back
to work building the next version of the product that they'll want even
more.
The world divides into the following people:
- folks most interested in pre-1.0 releases
- people willing to try 1.0
- people who prefer to wait for 1.1
- people who wait for a specific feature
- people who will never, ever care
- the rest of the world
Whatever we decide to ship for 1.0 will be enough for some people, and not
enough for others. That's what 1.1 and 2.0 are for.
Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat May 26 2001 - 03:50:59 CDT