[Lazarus] Release 1.0, part 2

[Juha Manninen]

On sunnuntai, 29. marraskuuta 2009 12:38:44 Florian Klaempfl wrote:
> We switched all our simulation machines at work from kde to gnome.
> Admitted, one reason is also that KDE4 looks terrible ugly :)

Oh, now is time to switch back then. KDE 4.3.x looks good again. :-)

I see KDE 4.0 as a warning example of claiming the SW as "ready" too early.
KDE 4.2 should have been 4.0. I think they lost many users, like Florian here.
Suse made an even bigger mistake by including that alpha-quality desktop as a 
default in their distro. They also lost users.
People trust the recommendations given by those projects, and they should be 
able to trust them.

Version 1.0 (or 4.0 with KDE) should mean:
  Usable for everyday work, no showstopper bugs and no missing features.

Version 0.9.x means: 
  Good for testing and experimenting, don't trust for serious work. Some 
features still missing.

I also say that Lazarus is nearly ready for 1.0. Feature freeze, RC1 version 
and then 1.0. Could happen quite soon. Early next year?


From another message from Florian, about users looking at version
numbers:
>Do you really want such people using lazarus :)?
> They'll waste our time with whinning, no more no less.

This is an opposite of what commercial companies do. They cheat people by 
naming a beta-quality program v1.0 so people buy it happily.

You want to cheat people by naming a production-quality program v0.9.x to keep 
"whiners" out. I understand it. Development is most productive with a 
relatively small but talented and dedicated team.

This is about balance of interests. A commercial company would go bankruptcy 
with this mentality but this is not a company, it is an open source project. 
Interesting to learn...


Regards,
Juha Manninen