[haiku-development] Re: Beta1 and R1 release plan
- From: Jessica Hamilton <jessica.l.hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2014 18:11:23 +1300
On Monday, 3 November 2014, Adrien Destugues <pulkomandy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 02, 2014 at 12:04:19PM -0800, Niels Sascha Reedijk wrote:
> >> The goals here are multiple:
> >> * Finally provide a stable release which third-party developers can use
> >> * Setup a better release cycle so we can put out releases more
> frequently
> >> * Let the developers work on more exciting things without making them
> >> feel guilty for not working on the important R1 stuff
>
> > Overall I concur with the goals. What is missing here is the end-goal,
> > meaning why are we still working on Haiku? Quoting the mission statement
> > from our homepage: "Haiku is a new open-source operating system that
> > specifically targets personal computing. Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku is
> > fast, simple to use, easy to learn and yet very powerful.”
> >
> > Is that still our main goal? To create an operating system that
> specifically
> > targets personal computing? Or have we evolved to the goal of a fun
> > playground for OS-developers to play around with modern OS concepts?
>
> As far as I'm concerned, we have already reached the goal of creating a
> great desktop operating system. I've been using Haiku for years as my
> main system and I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
>
> The goal that we have not completely reached is to create a 100%
> compatible BeOS R5 replacement. We are "close enough", and the remaining
> issues are too difficult to solve and probably not worth it, since BeOS
> users have either moved on to other things, or found other source of
> software (Java and Qt stuff as well as new native software) to continue
> using Haiku.
>
> >
> > I am making that assertion since the three goals are seemingly in
> support of
> > that mission. The 1st one, to put out the beta as soon as possible,
> really
> > leads op to 2 and 3, which is to better enable a playground for
> developers to
> > do cool new stuff.
> >
> > Note that I am in no way upset about this evolution of the mission. In
> fact,
> > I do think that the PC-landscape has changed dramatically since the
> inception
> > of the project, and I also underscore that there is a clear lack of focus
> > when it comes to accomplishing our current mission. I would go so far as
> to
> > say that the severe lack of interest of developers into finishing R1 is a
> > great indication in that there really hardly seems to be any place for a
> new
> > (mainstream?) desktop operating system anymore? Even the Linux on the
> desktop
> > guys seem to have ceased preaching their gospel.
> >
>
> There isn't a change to the mission of creating "an open-source operating
> system that specifically targets personal computing". I don't think we
> can reach that goal while keeping our anchors to the BeOS R5 legacy
> anymore. It is time to get a release out, and let our developers have
> fun working on the project and come up with some great new ideas on how
> to make the system better. Being a fun playground for the devs is not a
> goal of the project, but a way to keep the developers interested into it
> and making things happen. There are already a lot of ideas floating
> around.
>
> That being said, you have a good analysis of the situation: some of the
> developers (including some who agreed on this proposal) are working on
> Haiku not because they want to use it as their main system, but because
> they use it, as you say, as a playground. I think this is fine, as the
> results of such experiments is production quality code that we can put
> into a release (the most recent example being package management).
>
> This is why it's me stepping up as the release coordinator for beta1 and
> R1. As an Haiku user, and as a 3rd-party app developer, I have more
> interest in seeing the release happen than Ingo and Oliver do. An
> earlier plan discussed during this week was to not do any stable
> releases from the Haiku project, similar to what AROS does (leaving the
> work of doing releases to distributions such as Icaros). I did not agree
> with this, and this led to realizing that we all have different visions
> of what Haiku should be. But this is fine, and there is space for all of
> us in the Haiku project.
>
I had this same exact discussion privately on IRC, and am glad I'm not the
only one with this view. Where possible, I shall be willing to help with
release processes.
Also, +1 to the overall plan.
Other related posts:
