0.3.9

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Ged
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Re:

Post by Ged »

hto wrote:Oh… Is it so important, whether some build is called r40800 or 0.3.9; 0.3.10 or 0.4.0? It will not become better because of changed name.
Ahh, I disagree.
Whist this is generally the case for minor releases, we try to do something big for the major releases.
The 0.3.0 release was purposely done to incorporate some 'wow factor' changes. We're hoping to do the same with 0.4.0 :)
Lone_Rifle
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Lone_Rifle »

Z98 wrote:nute has already been told multiple times to not blindly insist on the theoretical release schedule that the developers use as a guideline. ... There is a great deal of flexibility in when we actually do a release and trying to hold us strictly to that schedule will get you nowhere.
so long as he doesn't threaten DDoSing this site if he doesn't get his release fix, his pestering is harmless. I'm surprised all of you are even bothered by him. You all should not be too aggressive in maintaining public opinion of this project. After all, why bother with stupid people?

If he does however, we could easily trace where he lives and take legal action.
Haos
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Haos »

Please mind that release cycle takes at least a month, from the moment of decision making, via deciding on blockers, fixing/hacking/dropping them, till changelog preparation, testing, period of trunk freeze, branching, more testing, last hacks applied and finally - release.
vicmarcal
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by vicmarcal »

Yes..im agree with all of u... :)

1)Im agree with Lone: If someone is always bothering about releases or times or anything...we should keep a good image... if someone sees a bad answer from a Tester or,worst,from a Dev...the ReactOS image project gets somekind dirty...it´s better doesnt answering at all than giving a bad answer.. imho..of course.
Im not talking about this issue but in general...and im the first to shut up...my fault :)

2)Im agree with Haos: A release takes time....and much more time when a blocker appears :)

3)Im agree with Hto: It´s true that changing the name doesnt help to have a better product...but...people expects a big change in 0.4.0..since i have heard Ged will help with explorer_new (correct me..if the IRC spies are lieing me again) i know that those expectations are going to be satisfied...

4)And totally agree with Ged: Pushing Ged to the limit gives always nice info ;)...(j/k)...Can i ask u one Wow factor in explorer_new?heheh..or do you want to keep it secret? :) and yes..changing the X in 0.X must have some nice changes... i hope 0.4 will change user experience...and it will: Usb,music,explorer_new,reliable network,performance...:)..a nice jump
tuqueque
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by tuqueque »

... I'll begin my post with a nice quoting...
hahaha, an interesting way to get information. :)
Sadly sometimes even that way gets no real answer at all :S...

I find all this thread very interesting because is informative, shows the "good" intentions in React's people and the surely good but "not-so-polite" way of explaining things of other sides of React's people...

Victor, I applaud your good intentions of giving information, maybe there isn't 100% accurate, maybe not even 50%, but believe me, that's good enough and more than that, that's the best we can get here on React's forums sometimes...

I know, sometimes devs don't even know about realease dates or detailed roadmaps, those kind of stuff can change from one day to another... BUT...

It's perfectly OK to say "we plan to release next version in a week and version XXX in a month" and 3 days later, change that idea... i only have less than 6 months knowing about React and i already noticed there's a loose schedule on things...

As long as you keep informing people about schedule changes, everything will be ok... And i know... in avery forum there's A LOT of people that seems to only ask questions without a previous minimum reading first (that's like 90% of registered forum members :S)... but at least speaking for myself, i try to do a minimum reading first...

For example, i've read that React doesn't support SATA hdd yet (you can try using an "IDE compatibility mode")... but the question remains... Is there a "roadmap" for real SATA support?... i have this question on my mind for like 3 months now and i haven't asked because of the sometimes harsh answer you get from devs :S... and i repeat, i know sometimes is quite annoying to see people only asking questions over and over, but that's not the case of the other 10% of forum members who have (in my oppinion) honest and humble questions... At the end, we are affraid to ask anything 'cause it can be a stupid question from devs POV.

... My point is... you can be more informative answering questions... and you definitely could stop 50% of the repeating questions and annoying members if you take the time to create some UP TO DATE Stickys and loose roadmaps!... you'll probably say "we are too busy doing dev work" but believe me, you will save time answering "stupid" questions by just posting a link to an up to date and frequently updated sticky or an also frequently updated wiki roadmap.

You do an amazing job with the newsletter about current dev work... i love to read that and i just found your commits page and ros-dev list and also loving it... but sometimes this is a little confusing for general people and is not an organised way to catch any roadmap... you could spend some time on stickys and a new roadmap and you will avoid a lot (sadly not all) of discussions like this one... And probably long posts like mine ;)

This is an awesome project with an ever growing community... Questions will only increase in mumber, so you could prepare for that!... besides, that's a chain reaction, if forum members get informed with up to date stuff... that people could (and will) help you answering questions on the forums... I see that everyday on other forums. :)

P.S.: excuse any spell errors, i'm in a hurry and don't have much time to double check.

Greets.
tuqueque.
hto
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Post by hto »

tuqueque wrote: Sadly sometimes even that way gets no real answer at all
I think there is some lack of information about what is going on… I am not well informed :) , what to say about general public?
vicmarcal
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by vicmarcal »

hto wrote:I think there is some lack of information about what is going on… I am not well informed :) , what to say about general public?
Then also this problem must be fixed :)
Haos
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Haos »

@hto

Its because we miss you on IRC://
Ey3
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Ey3 »

tuqueque wrote:... I'll begin my post with a nice quoting...
hahaha, an interesting way to get information. :)
Sadly sometimes even that way gets no real answer at all :S...

I find all this thread very interesting because is informative, shows the "good" intentions in React's people and the surely good but "not-so-polite" way of explaining things of other sides of React's people...

Victor, I applaud your good intentions of giving information, maybe there isn't 100% accurate, maybe not even 50%, but believe me, that's good enough and more than that, that's the best we can get here on React's forums sometimes...

I know, sometimes devs don't even know about realease dates or detailed roadmaps, those kind of stuff can change from one day to another... BUT...

It's perfectly OK to say "we plan to release next version in a week and version XXX in a month" and 3 days later, change that idea... i only have less than 6 months knowing about React and i already noticed there's a loose schedule on things...

As long as you keep informing people about schedule changes, everything will be ok... And i know... in avery forum there's A LOT of people that seems to only ask questions without a previous minimum reading first (that's like 90% of registered forum members :S)... but at least speaking for myself, i try to do a minimum reading first...

For example, i've read that React doesn't support SATA hdd yet (you can try using an "IDE compatibility mode")... but the question remains... Is there a "roadmap" for real SATA support?... i have this question on my mind for like 3 months now and i haven't asked because of the sometimes harsh answer you get from devs :S... and i repeat, i know sometimes is quite annoying to see people only asking questions over and over, but that's not the case of the other 10% of forum members who have (in my oppinion) honest and humble questions... At the end, we are affraid to ask anything 'cause it can be a stupid question from devs POV.

... My point is... you can be more informative answering questions... and you definitely could stop 50% of the repeating questions and annoying members if you take the time to create some UP TO DATE Stickys and loose roadmaps!... you'll probably say "we are too busy doing dev work" but believe me, you will save time answering "stupid" questions by just posting a link to an up to date and frequently updated sticky or an also frequently updated wiki roadmap.

You do an amazing job with the newsletter about current dev work... i love to read that and i just found your commits page and ros-dev list and also loving it... but sometimes this is a little confusing for general people and is not an organised way to catch any roadmap... you could spend some time on stickys and a new roadmap and you will avoid a lot (sadly not all) of discussions like this one... And probably long posts like mine ;)

This is an awesome project with an ever growing community... Questions will only increase in mumber, so you could prepare for that!... besides, that's a chain reaction, if forum members get informed with up to date stuff... that people could (and will) help you answering questions on the forums... I see that everyday on other forums. :)

P.S.: excuse any spell errors, i'm in a hurry and don't have much time to double check.

Greets.
tuqueque.
I agree! :roll:
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Jaix
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Re:

Post by Jaix »

hto wrote:Oh… Is it so important, whether some build is called r40800 or 0.3.9; 0.3.10 or 0.4.0? It will not become better because of changed name.
That isn't entirely true, a releas build is always different then a trunk build. Not to mentione wall papers :)
nute
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by nute »

Using the latest trunk build, 40413, and it hasn't crashed yet ;-)

Seems I have to move the mouse though to get firefox to move on...

What is the point of telling people approximately when the next release
of ReactOS is going to become available if it is considered rude for people
to ask about it at that time?

It is April when ReactOS 0.3.9 will hopefully be released. Granted, it's
only the 2nd week of April.

I've read articles on google that predicted ReactOS wouldl be at 0.5.0 by
now, but I guess those people didn't realize the amount of work involved.

I hear people say read the SVN logs to figure out what's going on, but even
if I can figure out how to do that, it will only tell me what has possibly been
fixed at the moment. A todo list for people to look at would be nice. A
centralized todo list for all the developers might not be a bad idea anyways.
Lone_Rifle
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Lone_Rifle »

Here's your beloved todo list: http://www.reactos.org/en/about_roadmap.html

And in case you don't get the point yet, you can't have a todo list when you don't have a plan, and the devs have no plans at the moment. Organised progress isn't exactly a goal in mind.
Haos
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Haos »

Bugzilla contains not only fixes but also new/requested features. So are the SVN logs, which in my opinion present most detailed, albeit most technical source of info.

As for TODO list, it was tried several times in the past but never really worked.
What is the point of telling people approximately when the next release
of ReactOS is going to become available if it is considered rude for people
to ask about it at that time?
The word APPROXIMATELY is the key.
user312
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by user312 »

Both bugzilla and SVN are good, but in different ways. SVN is great for seeing what's actively being worked on and upcoming for the next release (e.g. palette, gdi32, audio, network stack) , however bugzilla does allow for a somewhat (very) limited glimpse into a "roadmap" as it has a spot for "Target Milestone" which provides a bit of a "priority" listing for specific bugs/feature support. Granted this entry is often blank, but when it's filled in you know someone is at least interested in working on it. You can also get a pretty good indication of what devs are interested in working on by the various responses/requests for more info that's included in the bug reports. Of course, given the somewhat fluid nature of the project things change constantly so I can see how maintaining an "official" list would be somewhat difficult. You can always keep up to date just by occassionally checking out the mailing lists (Check out the "Bugzilla Notify List" and "Diffs Commit List" (and even the "Developers List") under "Community --> Mailing Lists --> Active mailing lists" - just follow the "archives" link for the mail archives).

Just as an example of information you can get reading some of the mailing lists - I've noticed recently that several bugzilla entries have recently been updated (by fireball) with target milestones for both release v0.3.10 and v0.3.11. That provides a fairly good indication that v0.4 isn't coming anytime soon and looking at some of the entries (http://www.reactos.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1041; http://www.reactos.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3645; http://www.reactos.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3302) you can start putting together a limited roadmap of what's coming in the near future (v0.3.10 - better UniATA support; v0.3.11 USB stack, installer patches). This indicates that better drive support, USB support, and fewer installer limitations (among other things) are being worked on before the magic v0.4 release hits. That's more or less from a simple 5 minute scan of the latest entires in the Ros-bugs mail archive - dig a bit deeper and I'm sure you can get a better overall picture.

You can also infer (although somewhat dangerously) that since fireball has recently changed several of the "Target Milestones" that goals for the v0.3.9 release are starting to be determined, at least from the point of view of aspects he's currently working on (i.e. several things he's involved in won't make make it, so cutoffs are being made). Once release goals are finalized then there's the standard push for last minute fixes to meet those goals, pre-release stability testing, and then, eventually, the final release (keeping in mind the "volunteer" nature of the project - this could still take a while). Bottom line - the devs know about the "release date", but if things take longer to sort out so be it. If you need a current version to see what's coming up before then, just download a trunk build - they may be a bit "buggy", but even the official releases are buggy by nature - ReactOS is still in the Alpha stage afterall.

Todo lists for volunteer driven projects never seem to work too well as people tend donate their time to work on things that interest them and not neccessarily on what others want them to accomplish. There's a reason why most volunteer developers are against todo lists - todo lists make a fun "volunteer" project feel a bit too much like work for many people. If you get told what to do all day at work, why would you want to come home and have someone else tell you what to do with your "free" time as well? Typically a better approach is to have rough goals that are developer driven (keeping within the framework of current project goals of course!) as it tends to keep programmers happier, which keeps them around longer resulting in faster coding and a better overall end result. As the projects heads closer and closer to Beta stage, there will have to be a bit more organization with regard to getting some of the "less popular" issues addressed as well as increased amounts of time bug fixing, but I trust that the devs will organize that amongst themselves as to who does what and when without neccessarily resorting to a strict "todo" list.

That being said, the project could improve it's communiction skills a bit...all it needs is a few more people to volunteer for the ungrateful task...
Haos
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Re: 0.3.9

Post by Haos »

user312 wrote:That being said, the project could improve it's communiction skills a bit...all it needs is a few more people to volunteer for the ungrateful task...
Your rough characteristics was quite accurate. As within every project of similar kind, we are in heavy need of manpower, especially dedicated people that wont disappear right after accepting tasks on their backs. Upkeeping a TODO list is especially tough, as it requires good communication with all devs, influence on them at basic degree, as well as taking part in decision making. There are not many people in ReactOS team that would fill in those requirements, and those that do, are usually the most encumbered ones.
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