dovecot - Dec 2005 - Dovecot Version Numbers - Let's drop the Alpha?

I'd like to make a suggestion. Let's drop the Alpha and come out with an
official version 1.0.

Here's my reasons. The 0.9x version are obsolete and people should be 
using the 1.0 Alpha versions which seem to me to do everything the 
previous versions did and more. It's as full featured and stable as all 
other IMAP servers and in my opinion is ready to be called 1.0.

The "Alpha" label scares people off and with the 0.9x version being 
obsolete I think it creates confusion for new users. It created 
confusion for me when I converted to dovecot, and distros are less 
,ikely to include versions with the Alpha label.

Once you go to 1.0 you can start a 1.1 alpha series and finish it up. I 
know Timo has high standards but as a marketing issue I think that the 
Alpha label needs to go to get people to accept and use 1.0 in production.

Thoughts?

-- 
Marc Perkel - marc@perkel.com

Spam Filter: http://www.junkemailfilter.com
    My Blog: http://marc.perkel.com

Marc Perkel wrote:
> I'd like to make a suggestion. Let's drop the Alpha and come out
with an
> official version 1.0.
Actually, what I would like to see is to start a beta phase for dovecot 1.0, 
declare 1.0 feature freeze and only commit bug fixes to this branch from now 
on.

Timo's work can continue with a 1.1alpha version, in CVS tip.

After some time of beta status (which may encourage more people to upgrade 
from 0.99 to 1.0) Timo could make an offical 1.0 release and distributions 
would be very likely to catch up.

Early adopters and those who want new features immediately (like dbox) 
should continue to follow the 1.1 version as they see fit.

Things that should be fixed before making a 1.0 beta, IMHO:
- included plugins should actually work

Of course this is all up to Timo, so, I am very interested in his point of 
view. Timo?

Best Regards,
Michael Paesold

For political reasons, I would like to see alphaX promoted to "1.0".
My boss had a cow the other day when I told her we are running alpha
code in production.  My defense was "you hadn't noticed because it
works."  Or at least call alpha6 something like "beta1" instead.

Jeff Earickson
Colby College

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Marc Perkel wrote:
> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 06:42:09 -0800
> From: Marc Perkel <marc@perkel.com>
> To: dovecot@dovecot.org
> Subject: [Dovecot] Dovecot Version Numbers - Let's drop the Alpha?
> 
> I'd like to make a suggestion. Let's drop the Alpha and come out
with an
> official version 1.0.
>
> Here's my reasons. The 0.9x version are obsolete and people should be
using
> the 1.0 Alpha versions which seem to me to do everything the previous 
> versions did and more. It's as full featured and stable as all other
IMAP
> servers and in my opinion is ready to be called 1.0.
>
> The "Alpha" label scares people off and with the 0.9x version
being obsolete
> I think it creates confusion for new users. It created confusion for me
when
> I converted to dovecot, and distros are less ,ikely to include versions
with
> the Alpha label.
>
> Once you go to 1.0 you can start a 1.1 alpha series and finish it up. I
know
> Timo has high standards but as a marketing issue I think that the Alpha
label
> needs to go to get people to accept and use 1.0 in production.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -- 
> Marc Perkel - marc@perkel.com
>
> Spam Filter: http://www.junkemailfilter.com
>   My Blog: http://marc.perkel.com
>

I 100% agree with you. All of this version numbering needs to start  
making sense. Call it 1.0.0 already. Nobody is going to take it  
seriously if it's never released.

On Dec 16, 2005, at 6:42 AM, Marc Perkel wrote:
> I'd like to make a suggestion. Let's drop the Alpha and come out  
> with an official version 1.0.
>
> Here's my reasons. The 0.9x version are obsolete and people should  
> be using the 1.0 Alpha versions which seem to me to do everything  
> the previous versions did and more. It's as full featured and  
> stable as all other IMAP servers and in my opinion is ready to be  
> called 1.0.
>
> The "Alpha" label scares people off and with the 0.9x version
being
> obsolete I think it creates confusion for new users. It created  
> confusion for me when I converted to dovecot, and distros are  
> less ,ikely to include versions with the Alpha label.
>
> Once you go to 1.0 you can start a 1.1 alpha series and finish it  
> up. I know Timo has high standards but as a marketing issue I think  
> that the Alpha label needs to go to get people to accept and use  
> 1.0 in production.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -- 
> Marc Perkel - marc@perkel.com
>
> Spam Filter: http://www.junkemailfilter.com
>    My Blog: http://marc.perkel.com
>

I'll call the next release 1.0.beta1.

I don't think there's a need yet for a new branch, since most of the
changes in Dovecot core are bugfixes, and the rest are simple enough
changes that they can't really break. And I'm not planning on adding any
new larger features to Dovecot core either.

dbox format lives just fine in its own little world. If it's buggy, it
doesn't really matter as it doesn't affect mbox/maildir at all.

The added plugins also can't break things since they are plugins and
aren't used by default. Of course, there's that one compilation problem
that I'll still need to fix..

As for when 1.0 comes, well, there are still too many unsolved bugs.
It's good that people report backtraces from crashes here, but too often
I just can't figure out how to reproduce them and can't see anything
wrong with the code either. It would really help if people tried
reproducing the bugs themselves and told me how it can be done..