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 Current version numbering is outdated and should eventually be changed to year or month dependent or something like that.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.