Subject: Re: Topic: Tables and 1.0
rms@greymalkin.yi.org
Date: Wed May 02 2001 - 20:18:31 CDT
On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 10:38:15PM -0400, Dom Lachowicz wrote:
> Starting a thread for discussion of the subject "tables and abiword 1.0."
> Should they go in? Why/why not. Make yer cases here folks.
Anyone who read my emails should already have this gist:
Should tables go in AbiWord 1.0? Yes and no.
It all boils down to when is 1.0 coming out of the closet.
Closed source model: time frame determines features. Features not available by time frame do not go in.
Open Source model: features determine versions, usually 1.0 is when it is ready and rock solid (even if it takes years, and there are cases of it).
Time framing 1.0 is the only reason scaring away from test drives towards an implementation, since all the efforts should be on the rock solid state. Luckily, we do have some brave souls giving some dead serious thought on tables.
The problem of releasing a 1.0 without common and reasonable to expect features relies on the users that will feel that AbiWord is crap because it doesn't have a feature that almost every other word processor has. These users will unlikely come bac to abiword soon, and will express their contempt to others.
The advantages of being humble and release rock solid "betas" like 0.8.x and 0.10.x seem clear to me (while I still haven't read a single list of sustainable advantages for a 1.0 final):
the product is as rock solid as we could make it
the product will lay a good impression on users, and they'll look forward to the evolution of the product
no feature is forever locked out until 1.0 comes out
Some have argued that this way of thinking leads to never releasing a 1.0
Why? I think that it may delay the 1.0 LABEL (which is nothing more than it can ever be called) untill we can seriously compete.
Why can't we seriously compete?
Because no word processor that aims to competes with word pad can be taken seriously.
OUr current feature set makes our overall score much better than word pad, but much worse than ms word (and I do not mean it's 100 million features, but at least those that *ARE IN THE TOOLBARS AND BASIC MENUS BECAUSE TOO MANY PEOPLE USE THEM FREQUENTLY* Tables Included.
We can hate, joke and even cry out for Microsoft, but one thing they have done that they must be venered... they have evolved ms word tremendously. The earliest version I ever used of MS Word was from GEM. It was able to position more or less correctly images and had basic tables, as well as footnotes. Then I used ms word 4.x on the mac, then 5.x, then 6.x on windows and mac, and this is about the last time I ever seriously touched ms word, since I learned of latex, and vim, and other marvelous pieces of software.
I think I've diverged long enough from the gist of my emails, back to the topic...
Launching a 1.0 now will give us 15 minutes of fame on the news.
Due to our current feature set, launching a 0.8 would give us the same 15 minutos of fame, PLUS the humblety of not calling it a finished product, PLUS the benefit of calling more developers PLUS attracting more users.
1.0 seems more like we don't know what good features it needs more, so we just made it stable and launched.
People will be amazed at our product, but will rather soon dismiss it to LyX, or MS Word for serious jobs. I don't think we deserve the same role of Word Pad.
Hugs, rms
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