When will 0.3.15 release?

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milon
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by milon »

vicmarcal wrote:Why am I so stubborn about moving once and for all towards 0.4.0?
Because from the PR point of view, the 0.3.X series is unfair related to our current status and because we can't live forever in the 0.3.X world unless we are expecting to jump from 0.3.0 to 1.0 ;)
I agree with vicmarcal. ReactOS 0.3.0 was released nearly 7 years ago. It can't be helping PR at all to be in the same series for 7 years.
Source: http://www.reactos.org/reactos-030-released
DOSGuy
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by DOSGuy »

Agreed: leave something for 0.4 to work on. A lot of important stuff is working or very nearly working. Lots of important software is working or close to working. After the MM rewrite improves stability, ReactOS can start looking towards going beta.
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BlackRabbit
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by BlackRabbit »

I agree. I am glad that someone else said what I have been thinking since the first day that I joined ReactOS: The image that is presented to the public due to infrequent releases is currently not good.

I was going to make the following proposal as a fix after getting something useful done (Visual Studio integration):

Change the version numbers to be based on instant of release in ISO date/time format. For example, let's say that a build is generated on the day of this post. Then:
  • ReactOS 2013.03.18, which includes the year/month/day-of-month would, by convention, indicate an alpha release.
  • ReactOS 2013.03, which includes the year/month would, by convention, indicate a beta release.
  • ReactOS 2013, which includes the year would, by convention, indicate a gamma release.
This convention would convey a sense of progress that is more in-line with the truth: that ReactOS makes excellent progress every day, every month, every year, and is very much alive. This, in turn, will inspire contributors to aim for stability as much as possible, as the version numbers would change more frequently. It also allows an observer to determine, very quickly, more or less, the instant of release. By some interpretation, there would never be a stale release.

I can think of two projects that follow the principles in the preceding paragraph:
  • ICU - International Components for Unicode issues releases quite frequently, with never more than a few months between releases.
  • Das U-Boot, and in particular, its founder, Wolfgang Denk, changed its version scheme for some of the reasons that I mentioned above.
I have been using this method in my own software releases.

This change would have one of the highest public-relations-impact/burden-of-implementation ratios of all things in ReactOS, IMO.
emule01
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by emule01 »

i agree with this method too
DOSGuy
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by DOSGuy »

That's a good way to show regular progress, but it doesn't convey the completeness of the project. It's important for the version number to convey how much users can expect from it. Once ReactOS moves from beta into full release, it can use that sort of year numbering system (Windows 95/98/2003, Office 2003/2007/2010/2013, NHL Hockey 2k13, etc.).
Today entirely the maniac there is no excuse with the article. Get free BeOS, DOS, OS/2, and Windows games at RGB Classic Games.
vicmarcal
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by vicmarcal »

BlackRabbit wrote: I was going to make the following proposal as a fix after getting something useful done (Visual Studio integration):
Btw, how is the Visual Studio integration going?I think that could be a nice feature :)
And 0.4.0 shouldnt be so far...and having it for 0.4.0 would be awesome.
:)
BlackRabbit
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by BlackRabbit »

vicmarcal wrote:Btw, how is the Visual Studio integration going?I think that could be a nice feature
And 0.4.0 shouldnt be so far...and having it for 0.4.0 would be awesome.
Well, I had two objectives for Visual Studio integration:
  • Pull ReactOS sources from the repository using SVN and generate bootcd/livecd by hitting build.
  • Use Visual Studio running inside VM host to debug ReactOS as it runs inside VM guest.
Amine and others are already working on the first objective, as you know, so I paused further work on it. In particular, I am waiting to see the final result, or rather, the moment that the cmake/Visual Studio method can be used to generate bootcd/livecd, because at that point, the entire build process using Visual Studio, by way of cmake, will be evident, and it can be determined whether additional work should be done, or if the output of cmake is sufficient.

I have been looking into the second objective. Two weeks ago, I tried to create a debug session as described, but it failed. The failure was with MSVSMON.EXE apparently confused because it was running inside ReactOS, and not Windows. However, MSVSMON.EXE clearly indicates that Visual Studio is successfully talking to it, so I think this should eventually work. I sent an email to Alex today, asking him about the sufficiency of implementation of ReactOS's security subsystem and Debugger API. Ironically, the best way to solve this problem is to have the solution to the problem first, though I will switch to an alternate debugger if I have to.
fireball
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by fireball »

BlackRabbit wrote:
  • ReactOS 2013.03.18, which includes the year/month/day-of-month would, by convention, indicate an alpha release.
  • ReactOS 2013.03, which includes the year/month would, by convention, indicate a beta release.
  • ReactOS 2013, which includes the year would, by convention, indicate a gamma release.
I proposed this a number of times, and still stand on my own. Current version numbering is outdated and should eventually be changed to year or month dependent or something like that.
Aleksey Bragin,
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milon
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by milon »

fireball wrote:I proposed this a number of times, and still stand on my own. Current version numbering is outdated and should eventually be changed to year or month dependent or something like that.
Would a community poll make any difference? I also like this suggestion, and it makes much more sense to me.
Z98
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by Z98 »

Unless a community poll somehow magically stabilizes trunk and keeps it consistently stable, it won't change much. The greatest roadblock to the suggested proposal isn't other developers (directly at least), it's the state of the codebase and its tendency to swing violently between periods of relative stability and absolute insanity. The past year saw us integrate like three or four major pieces into ReactOS, all of which kept digging up issues in other parts of the code. We're actually at a local peak right now with respect to stability, hence the request I made for people to do a sanity check on regressions.
DOSGuy
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by DOSGuy »

Once you hit 1.0, it makes absolute sense to use a date instead of a version number. Until then, the version number should convey some information about the completeness of the project so that no one mistakes it for a post-1.0 product that is ready for prime time.
Today entirely the maniac there is no excuse with the article. Get free BeOS, DOS, OS/2, and Windows games at RGB Classic Games.
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Black_Fox
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by Black_Fox »

DOSGuy wrote:Once you hit 1.0, it makes absolute sense to use a date instead of a version number.
I wanted to write precisely this. Ubuntu can do it because sometimes in the past it has reached all its original goals and then evolved from that, ReactOS is however still reaching its "original" goals. However, as this discussion is probably aimed at "0.3.x looks like piece of ... in PR point of view, let's look better", does (increasing the version number to 0.4.x ASAP and then possibly to 0.5.x still this year) look so unreasonable?
BlackRabbit
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by BlackRabbit »

Would a community poll make any difference? I also like this suggestion, and it makes much more sense to me.
I very much support a poll.
DOSGuy wrote:Once you hit 1.0, it makes absolute sense to use a date instead of a version number. Until then, the version number should convey some information about the completeness of the project so that no one mistakes it for a post-1.0 product that is ready for prime time.
Oh...don't worry. There is no person alive on Earth who thinks ReactOS is anywhere near ready for prime-time. :twisted: :lol:

Seriously, I think we have to remain mindful of the various audiences of ReactOS:
  • General Public (would not necessarily use, but might donate, pontificate, etc.)
  • Inactive Users (includes those who have not tried ReactOS yet)
  • Active Users
  • Inactive Developers (I have already written about these in other posts.)
  • Active Developers
The General Public will not be using ReactOS on a day-to-day basis anytime in the foreseeable future. I call it the Almost-Ready-Airplane phenomenon. No customer is going to fly an airplane that is 95% complete, no matter how proud the engineer who designed it. However, an experienced stunt pilot, with parachute, might. The same is roughly true of Active/Inactive Users. They will tinker-with, and test ReactOS, but none of them will use it as their primary OS. The reason is that it is too unstable. That leaves Active/Inactive Developers. This is where I think the mistake of "getting ReactOS ready" is being made. Given the stability trajectory of ReactOS, trying to present a state of stability to other developers is like fretting about which underwear to wear before visiting a proctologist.

We need to focus on experienced pilots, with parachutes, who are OK with the product not being stable.
DOSGuy wrote:the version number should convey some information about the completeness of the project
BlackRabbit wrote:ReactOS 2013.03.18, which includes the year/month/day-of-month would, by convention, indicate an alpha release.
So the solution is simple: Until the release is stable enough to be called beta, keep the day of the month appended to the version string to indicate that it is still an alpha version.
vicmarcal
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by vicmarcal »

fireball wrote:
BlackRabbit wrote:
  • ReactOS 2013.03.18, which includes the year/month/day-of-month would, by convention, indicate an alpha release.
  • ReactOS 2013.03, which includes the year/month would, by convention, indicate a beta release.
  • ReactOS 2013, which includes the year would, by convention, indicate a gamma release.
I proposed this a number of times, and still stand on my own. Current version numbering is outdated and should eventually be changed to year or month dependent or something like that.
I simply don't like the idea.This could be cool for Operating Systems in non-Beta/Alpha stages, but not for software trying to reach Beta.
My arguments:
1)From PR point of view I: Users doesn't know about how to difference an alpha,beta or gamma release just by looking a date. We can do a poll. You'll see that just Devs(and not every Dev) knows about this Alpha/Beta/Gamma system. Dont expect guys out of coding knows what does it mean."ReactOS moves from 2013.6.3.to 2013.10 ! ": the Marketing guy would kill ya.

2)From PR point of view II: Dates are the worst things that can be used in a versioning system. I have seen countries with YY/MM/DD and YY/DD/MM.

3)From PR point of view III: Newspapers saying " ReactOS releases finally 0.4" is not the same as "ReactOS releases finally 2013.8".

4)Negative impact into motivation. Versioning helps to have an objetive from time to time(Ey, Let's jump to 0.4!We need a new 0.3.15!..blablabl..). Using 2013.9.3 or 2013.11.2 doesnt rise or keep any kind of motivation, we will just place a number when it's done. Bah!

5)Expectations. Right now followers,out of Reactos website, are expecting the 0.4 release. Moving into a new dating system without releasing 0.4 will be understood as trying to hide something, aka "They weren't able to reach 0.4 after 10 years and they invented this trick now".


And now, let's face it: The problem is not our current versioning system. The problem is how BAD we are using it. Let me highlight some "BAD" usings:

--->Zero: Not clear internal definition of what a ReactOS Beta release means.
Does Beta mean that the OS must be suitable for daily use?
Does Beta mean that it is suitable for VM or does Beta mean almost-suitable or totally working at Real hardware?
How much compatibility at software level is expected in a ReactOS Beta?
Or is Beta describing the number of "features"?In case Beta means "features compared with Windows 2003": Do we count almost-complete features too?or just totally complete features?
To sum up: Is there a ReactOS Team official statement/agreement about what does "Beta" mean in this ReactOS project ?


###First: Deciding that 0.5 will be the first Beta release.###

Someday, past in the time, a guy or the whole project decided that 0.5 should be the BETA release.
By definition 0.5.0 is a version half-way between Nothing and Completeness.(Btw defining "Completeness" would be a wonderful debate too)
In ReactOS development, both hardware and software compatibility grows not in a linear but in a exponential way. This happens because,ie,fixing an API or re/implementing an API fixes several apps/glitches at the same time. Code development shows big interrelations among functions.
I created a small graph which shows this dependent-behavior:

[ external image ]



The best part here, is that the level of compatibility expected when the code is developed at 50%(0.5.0 version) is much lower than 50%, around 25%.
So my doubt is:
Did the guy or the project know about this particularity when setting 0.5 as the Beta release?
--->If so, and if they decided that 25% is good than enough to call ReactOS BETA....Did ReactOS reach nowadays 25% of compatibility?
--->If they didnt realize, Should we move Beta towards 0.7.0 in order to reach that 50% of compatibility?
Mi personal guess is that they didnt realize(or we aren't realizing) that 0.5.0 doesnt mean 50% of compatibility.

One question for the record:
-If ReactOS project would have set ReactOS BETA version as 0.7 instead 0.5: Would have we already released 0.4 and maybe we would be nowadays moving towards 0.5?



###Second: A total lose of Big Picture###

I'm not going into, but I think it's pretty obvious that we lost totally the big picture. There is no reason to live 7 years in a 0.3.X series that obviously we have left behind long time ago in terms of completeness:ReactOS Trunk in terms of Features,Software compatibility, and Hardware compatibility is far away from 0.3.0.
So:
Which is the REAL reason to not move towards 0.4.0?
My bet: 0.5.0.
I think that the pressure of releasing a Beta in "0.5.0" is pushing us back to not jump into 0.4.0.
The real thing is: We can't stay in 0.3.X forever unless we want to be ignored.
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Black_Fox
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Re: When will 0.3.15 release?

Post by Black_Fox »

vicmarcal wrote:2)From PR point of view II: Dates are the worst things that can be used in a versioning system. I have seen countries with YY/MM/DD and YY/DD/MM.
While I generally support and agree with the rest of your points, here I want to emphasize that there's an ISO standard for writing dates. 2012-03-19. It has two advantages - nobody from EU can mistake it for US date and vice versa & filenames using it sort as you would expect.
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