Subject: Re: Loss of enthusiasim for AbiWord
From: Dom Lachowicz (doml@appligent.com)
Date: Fri Feb 08 2002 - 09:06:45 CST
> This is precisely why we should never release 1.0 with all these
> problems.
1.0 will be released when the 1.0 nominated bug count is close to zero.
However, there are some things that we just won't do to fix a bug during
this feature-freeze period. Namely:
1) Rewrite a substantial portion of the underlying architecture
2) Introduce new dependencies
3) Break other platforms in order to fix one
4) Introduce new bugs in place of an old bug
Now, we plan on using freetype2 to fix the problem mentioned in bug
1030. Using freetype2 will require us to rewrite a large portion of our
font handling code and drawing code, introduce new dependencies, and
potentially will break other platforms. Am I willing to do this after
1.0 is released and we start hacking on some new cool stuff? Definitely.
Software will always have bugs. AbiWord 1.0 will have bugs. Should abi
1.0 have this bug? Hopefully someone will think of ways to work around
this bug. I'm optimistic. Abi's current font engine on Unix works with
TTFs, CJK fonts, BiDirectional glyphs, and a slew of other neat and
exotic things. These bug and features are all well documented and well
tested. Am I willing to introduce potential new bugs, dependencies, and
potentially break other platforms to fix this bug and then perform
another year of testing on this new engine before we release 1.0? Quite
simply, No.
Dom
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Fri Feb 08 2002 - 09:10:36 CST