[scribus] The never-ending quest for perfection

[Peter Nermander]

>> Stable means: No more features added, no functional changes, bugs will be fixed.

> It would be better labelled "frozen" ?

No, because that term is used for a development version when it is
headed for a release.

1.4 has been work in progress for a long time. At one point the
developers declare a "code freeze". Then they compile "release
candidates". They are made to squash out the last show-stopping bugs.
When a release candidate has been used a certain time without anyone
finding new bugs it is "re-labelled" to the release version.

So, unless nobody find more bugs, what is now 1.4.0RC3 will become 1.4.


Also, as for the big time gap and taking a smaller step, it was (as
far as I understand) not possible.

The 1.3.3 series was not intended to become stable. It was a
development version. But, due to a new release of Qt (the major
libraries that Scribus rely on) the developers more or less had to
drop all work done on the 1.3.3 series and start over. The 1.3.5+
series (as well as 1.4.0) are based on Qt4, while 1.3.3.14 is based on
Qt3.

So, trying to update 1.3.3.14 with more features would have been
wasted work, because that code would never be able to use for 1.4.0.
Keeping 1.3.3.14 up to date with new features while at the same time
developing 1.4.0 would have been twice the work, because everything
would have to be done in two separate versions. That would also mean
that features would have worked differently in 1.3.3.14 and 1.4.0,
because the code would not have been identical.

/Peter