[bt-devel] Reviewing the Release Cycle

[Raoul Snyman]

Hi guys,

With the recent release of BibleTime 2.7, and looking at how short the 
changelog is, I felt that we should review the length of the release cycle.

I know that the reason it was shortened to 6 weeks was so that we would get 
new versions going out regularly, and without months and months of inaction, 
but I think that 6 weeks is too short a time to actually get a lot of work 
done.

When there is a new release with a significant version number (like 2.7), I 
would expect some fairly major new features, but recently we've mostly been 
bug fixing, which should be relegated to a bugfix release number (like 2.6.1), 
since it doesn't have any significant new functionality in it.

Certainly from my perspective, and I know from some other folks' perspectives 
as well (Jaak, for instance), I don't have a lot of time on my hands, and 
while I'd like to contribute to BT, the 6 week cycle means I don't get enough 
of a chance to do anything. I sadly haven't even been able to attend the last 
two *-a-thons.

I propose we lengthen the cycle to 3 months, and implement bugfix releases. 
This way our release cycles are long enough to include new features, and we 
can still fix up some bugs and release bugfixes.

Quite honestly, I think that going up 4 releases in a standard Ubuntu release 
cycle is a little ridiculous. It's almost like we're pushing up our version 
number just to look like a really mature project.

I'd really like to get stuck into the UI and try to make things better in 
terms of usability and "pretty", but the current release cycle doesn't work 
for me :-(

-- 
Raoul Snyman, B.Tech IT (Software Engineering)
Saturn Laboratories
m: 082 550 3754
e: raoul.snyman at saturnlaboratories.co.za 
w: www.saturnlaboratories.co.za 
b: blog.saturnlaboratories.co.za