Proposal: Create a predictable schedule [#1592104]

Like as Proposal: Create a predictable schedule around Drupal 7 point releases

I think a lot users wont like to use a dev version of Views when encounter issues only fixed in dev, without patches.

Comments

Comment #1

dawehner

German

CreditAttribution: dawehner commented 21 May 2012 at 13:45

Sure on the one hand it would be great to have a reliable knowledge when a new release will come out,
but this opens new questions:

* what happens if there are some bugs, which couldn't be fixed until the stable release day, should the release be postponed?
* What happens if there isn't really a progress in the sense that it's worth for people to update.
If you estimate the costs of a release for the community you could calculate something like that (this is probably too high): 200k installations * 10min/installation * 100 $/hour = 333k $ (hey the units fit ;)) so the schedule should be better longer then shorter.
* This would require contributors to plan their own schedule after the schedule of the module. I'm not sure whether this possible.

What timeframe would you suggest?

Comment #2

rogical CreditAttribution: rogical commented 22 May 2012 at 02:03

Yes, new questions do exist.

But nowadays, software projects are common to have a normalize release date, such as once a month or two weeks.

For the time you calculated, we do need to avoid to make release too frequently, but there's a good example -- drupal core.

Drupal core now keeps a release schedule when many commits accumulated, and usually make a release around the end of a month.

Personally thinking, a new release in 2 months from the last is very good, also depends how many commits.

...
drupal 7.10 December 5, 2011
drupal 7.11/drupal 7.12 February 1, 2012
drupal 7.13/drupal 7.14 May 2, 2012

For 'some bugs not fixed', we can't always deplay the release for those bugs, we can just keep it to the next release, as many of other fixes needs to be released.

I think you must agree, not use dev version on production, that's what 'dev branch for Views 3 for Drupal 7. Use at your own risk.' says.