Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 02:21:45 +0100 (CET)
From: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
To: Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com>
Cc: PostgreSQL Development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Release cycle length
In-Reply-To: <87isliiiue.fsf@mailbox.samurai.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0311180215410.639-100000@peter.localdomain>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Neil Conway writes:

> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> > The time from release 7.3 to release 7.4 was 355 days, an all-time
> > high.  We really need to shorten that.
>
> Why is that?

First, if you develop something today, the first time users would
realistically get a hand at it would be January 2005.  Do you want that?
Don't you want people to use your code?  We fix problems, but people must
wait a year for the fix?

Second, the longer a release cycle, the more problems amass.  People just
forget what they were doing in the beginning, no one is around to fix the
problems introduced earlier, no one remembers anything when it comes time
to write release notes.  The longer you develop, the more parallel efforts
are underway, and it becomes impossible to synchronize them to a release
date.  People are not encouraged to provide small, well-thought-out,
modular improvements.  Instead, they break everything open and worry about
it later.  At the end, it's always a rush to close these holes.

Altogether, it's a loss for both developers and users.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net