Re: Release notes

[Gregory John Casamento]

Riccardo,

--- Riccardo <address@hidden> wrote:
<SNIP>
> We can argue about making a "must be working" OS list and I would avoid 
> that, criteria and personal preferences would clash. Most widespread OS? 
> Windows! and it is an important one, recent talks from Gregory (but 
> ironically I had a private talk with a developer the week before and 
> told that gregory) confirm that. 

My point in my previous posts was to emphasize that GNUstep on Windows needs to
be made to work more acceptably and to underscore it's importance to the Mac OS
X/Cocoa Development community at large.  Linux and FreeBSD should always remain
our primary focus as a Free Software project.

> Linux and *BSD  are closer to us being Free Software and we are after all 
> GNU... we should work on Hurd :)

When Hurd actually works and can:

1) remain up for more than a few hours without crashing
2) has more than two users 

then I'm sure we'll work on Hurd.  Until then, we'll see.  Anyway, sorry to
disappoint, but I don't see Hurd becoming a critical release criteria anytime
soon.

> Also the entity of the "showstopper" can be argued. Some people here use 
> only gui, so glitches there are important, other poeple use more -base 
> and the web/database stuff.  But everyone will agree that the failure to 
> build -base is bad! :)

I agree with this.

> I wrote a long mail and I wonder if someone read it up to this line, but 
> the main concept is that we are pretending that gnustep is getting more 
> mature and usable (which, in my opinion, it is indeed). 

I assume that you mean that we are getting more mature.  

I'm confused with the use of the term "pretending" here.  Either we are getting
more mature, or we're merely *pretending* to get more mature, which would mean
we're really not.  :)

> SO as we approach "1.0" releases (see gorm) we should also try to act 
> accordingly.

In my opinion we should create a list of "critical release criteria" which
governs what requirements MUST be met in order for us to make a release.  This
is similar to what gcc does.    For instance bugs on certain
architectures/operating systems or in some language front-ends will not prevent
gcc from releasing.  

Part of this criteria would, of course, be which OSes are considered important
enough to consistitute a "showstopper" which will require a fix prior to
release.  

> Thank you for your patience,
>    R

Later, GJC

Gregory John Casamento 
-- CEO/President Open Logic Corp. (A MD Corp.)
## Maintainer of Gorm (IB Equiv.) for GNUstep.