Thus spoke Olof S Kylander > I mean releasing Gimp 1.2 before that is not wise. Why? Well what we have > been bashed most of is the inconsistent UI. So adding a lot of new > features and then say "stop and go" is not very wise. The bottom line Gimp > is the top of the line open source application that is targeting *_users_. Very true. > I don't mind waiting around extra three months to make Gimp be the top of > the line program when it comes to user friendly UI. I mean if we rush it > really we can maybe release Gimp 1.2 in Jan 2000. So how much > will it hurt to release it in Mars instead. Actually, it has a potentially big impact. The Gimp is one of the premiere applications in the Linux world. A feature freeze was announced earlier in an attempt to schedule a release date. You have quite a few book publishers trying to do books on the Gimp and trying to time release of the book with the product. End users associate published texts with the product, especially when a printed document is not delivered with the product. I've had at leat 5 different publishers ask me about release dates. I've been telling them late December to late January based on the feature freeze and goals for the freeze - focus on bug fixing. UI problems can be considered bugs, but the truth is they are a design issue. They do work, just not as might be desired. Additionally, UI changes were not part of the design specifications for the 1.2 release. Feature updates were, but mostly as a matter of work done. Although I agree that UI updates are necessary, it seems too late in the 1.2 cycle to try to add a focus on them now. We're already looking at a full year between 1.0 and 1.2. For what its worth, my wishes would be that UI changes be spec'd out for 1.4 and not added into the freeze period for 1.2. -- Michael J. Hammel | The Graphics Muse | I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing! mjhammel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | http://www.graphics-muse.com
