[OPEN-ILS-DEV] ***SPAM*** Well, it's that time again ...

[Mike Rylander]

... time to talk releases.  This is meant to start the discussion, not
to dictate a plan, mind you.  Please jump in if you feel so inclined.

So, here's what seems reasonable to me.

 * 1.6.0.4 -- Big bug fix release. It's just about ready, pending
application of a fix for some Dojo Grid UI issues that is currently
being tested.  I'd like to get that out ASAP, and I'm realistically
targetting April 15.
 * 1.6.1.0 -- Big-ish feature release, specifically
Booking/Reservation, along with all the fixes in 1.6.0.4.  This, too,
is nearly ready, but there is at least one pointy bit in the code to
smooth out (op-capture delay of temporally distant reservations -- we
have a plan), and the matching documentation (I know!  Can you believe
it?!) needs to be brought up to speed.  That's planned for (more or
less) next week.  Realistic target for this, right now, seems like May
15.

Beyond that things get fuzzier, but there's more to plan.

So, we have trunk, which will become something-after-1.6.  I propose,
because of the massive changes in both code and database structure,
that we use the version number to help convey that this is largely new
code and call it 2.0 when it's branched.  Also, in addition to the
newness of the code and the DB changes, there's the fact that 1.6 has
only been around for about 6 months.  Originally, 1.6 was going to be
a short-lived stepping stone on the way to
whatever-contained-acquisition.0, but it's taken on a life of it's own
and is both divergent /and/ mature enough that we can reasonably
expect some sites to stay on 1.6.something for a while.  As for a
target date on this, well, an alpha look probable by August.

Which brings us to the possibility of a 1.6.2 series.  IMO, it would
be worth considering a few trunk-only features for backporting to this
hypothetical release stream.  For instance, if serials can reasonably
be extracted intact, that would be a top contender in my mind.
Another would be the advances we've made with Action/Trigger that
allow much more sophisticated setups and more intelligent, not to
mention faster, processing of events.  A third example might be some
of the Staff Client improvements, most likely the Circulation and
Cataloging related changes, that are in trunk now or going into trunk
over the next couple months.  That could make 1.6.2 a true stepping
stone to 2.x, and give us the change to put some of the more often
requested features (but not ACQ) into the field for real-world
shakedown.  I wouldn't expect this until some time after the 2.0-alpha
(or maybe even the 2.0.0.0 GA release) as we shouldn't let it drain
resources from 2.0, but before the end of the year would be my hope.

So ... Thoughts?

-- 
Mike Rylander
 | VP, Research and Design
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com