I love CB, I really do.
I really, really appreciate how the development team has completely dedicated themselves to stomping out bugs because software stability is very important to me.
I really, really like how they stemmed the "feature creep" that was a past bad habit!
And nothing I am about to suggest is a lack of respect or appreciation as I've been using the software for a long time and have waited for releases.
As I understand that (and agree with) the focus on the quality of the release is largely concerned with being a reliable source of software to encourage (and never discourage) adoption among end users and third parties.
However, there is a reason that software is released with "known issues" - it is because at a certain point bugs and issues that are not critical to stability or broadly used functionality are deemed acceptable until a patch or new release can be put together.
I would like to suggest that the development team refine the rationale for Major and Minor and Patch releases that would smooth out the release schedule. It does not have to be shared with the community - we would feel the effects via the resultant releases.
At it's core the management power of a release management strategy is managing expectations - not 100% bug free software. Setting and managing expections is one of the trickiest parts of managing software.
I really don't think any in the community would think less of the team or the excellent CB software for a release with documented "known issues" that are not show stoppers.
I believe that the current release model of major releases that have zero known issues can also be an effective inhibitor to adoption if they result in endless extensions of release dates.
As I said none of this is meant with any disrespect or lack of appreciation for what your software has done for me - it has enabled me to build a community site I otherwise could not have and I am very aware and appreciative of that (including contributing).
D.
Post edited by: djsdjs, at: 2006/05/08 16:25
