[Scribus] 1.4

[Maciej Hanski]

Christoph Sch?fer napisa?(a):
>> Speaking of 1.3.x benefits: there are so many that it makes me wonder if
>> the Scribus team couldn't reconsider the current roadmap and divide it
>> into _two_ stable stages? Which means: a stable 1.4 release right after
>> 1.3.4? Sometime in the autumn, perhaps? Just in time to make it into the
>> next releases of the major distros?
>>
>> You've achieved so much in the almost two years of the 1.3.x development
>> (only to mention the long awaited native ports for win32 and MacOsX)
>> that the 1.4 name is fully deserved. And I think, it's about time to
>> share your achievements with broader public:)
>>
>> What do others think about it?
>>
>> cheers
>> Maciej
> 
> I hate to disagree. 

Why? I want to get to know various pros and cons of this proposal,
that's why I've posted it in the first place. I like the way you disagree:)


If you look at the roadmap, there are still some things to
> be implemented which are quite important for professional work. Releasing 
> Scribus 1.3.4 as 1.4 would mean another setback in recognition by 
> professionals. 


Agreed, this would probably be the case, if we presented this release to
the profesional world as _the_ ultimate DTP solution. On the other hand,
if this hypothetical :) 1.4. release could be presented as a major
inbetween step on the way to the Milestone release 2.0, and we avoided
some annoying overstatements, we could count on rather good perception,
imho. And there would probably be some valuable feedback from the DTP
professionals and various press reviews, which could be utilised in
further development. So to say, a proof of concept after two years of
development, a chance to take a step back, make some roadmap
corrections, perhaps decide what's must-have and what's nice-to-have for
the milestone release.

There is yet another aspect of it. The majority of Scribus users are DTP
beginners, hobbyists, occasional users and semiprofessionals, which
learn from each other and grow with the software. These teachers,
students, various newsletter authors build the most committed Scribus
users group and are most committed testers and propagators (and teachers
like Dale are the typical opinion leaders:). For the last two years the
majority of them have had to stick to the stable 1.2.x series, because
all the major Linux distros don't, understandably, include unstable
software releases. They would be quite happy to get a stable build of
the current development stage for linux, macosx, and win32 -- perhaps a
build that wouldn't be _so_ professional, but wouldn't crash on them  in
front of the students :) Am I wrong?

I really think it is better to be patient and wait until all
> features are in their proper place and Scribus is running really stable. And 
> there are great things to come :)

We've received great things, and we are receiving them right now :)

If I got Craig right, there is no other choice but to be patient, since
the technicalities don't allow to break the development into two stable
stages.


> But that's my just personal opinion, of course ...
> 

That's what I've hoped for.

cheers
Maciej