Release Schedules and Feedback on Fixes

[Robert Brenstein]

>As you may know, we've been filling in some features that were promised in
>the 2.x product lifecycle, like UTF-8 support.  Our original plan was finish
>"feature fill" with 2.5, however we've decided to make it 2.6. 2.6
>represents the solid base which is Valentina 2 - a transition that, if
>you've been with us since Valentina 1.x has been a very long road indeed
>(but given all the shipping apps out there based around Valentina 2.x, not a
>bad one at all!).
>
>With a strong 2.6 base, we begin longer term planning along with incremental
>fixes. There isnt wholesale replacement of technology - we did that already
>with the transition from Valentina 1.x to Valentina 2.x.
>
>What this means is - if you have remained quiet about a pet issue or havent
>sent in a sample db for an issue you filed weeks ago - now is the time to do
>it, before we release 2.6. Our goal is to set our engineers working to solve
>_all_ outstanding issues while the rest of us are enjoying our cups of
>eggnog :-)
>
>Best regards,
>
>Lynn Fredricks
>President
>Paradigma Software, Inc
>

Lynn and Ruslan,

Is there any hope that Paradigma starts branching Valentina releases? 
With 2.6 perceived as a strong base, it may be the right time to 
consider seriously the introduction of branching into Valentina's 
development process.

This relentless push forward by mixing bug fixes and implementing new 
features (introducing new bugs and breaking working code in the 
process) may be leaving some, and I suspect mot so few, users behind, 
some even abandoning Valentina altogether. Each time I try to keep up 
with the new releases of Valentina, I feel like I am in a rat race, 
spending more time dealing with Valentina than my products since, at 
least in my case, I need to sync Valentina on at least 4-5 computers.

What I mean, in case someone is not clear what branching refers to, 
that when let's say Valentina 2.5 is released, the Paradigma team 
starts working on 2.6 release, that is working on implementing new 
features and enhancing existing ones. However, bug fixes are still 
provided to the 2.5 branch, so we get 2.5.1, 2.5.2, etc while being 
able to play or work with 2.6b1, 2.6b2 etc (which of course 
incorporate the bux fixes from 2.5.x branch).

One of the issues is that if I stay with, let's say, Valentina 2.4 
because of development/release schedule and support needed for my 
products using Valentina, as soon as a few new Valentina releases are 
out, I am essentially out of proper support since any Valentina 
coding problems require me updating to the most recent version. None 
of the official releases ever reaches stable maturity which allows us 
to ship our product with it and enjoy freedom to move along to the 
next version of Valentina and our products at our own pace.

I have been using Valentina for many, many years, and I am generally 
happy with the product and recommend it often to others. This list 
and the suport provided by Ruslan and his team are also fantastic. 
However, I could never understand why they don't do branching, which 
is de facto industry standard. After all, this is what version 
control solutions (CVS, Subversion, and dozen other) are all about. I 
am pretty sure that one of them is used by the Paradigma team, so it 
is "only" the matter of changing the procedures.

In my personal opinion, branching is essential if Valentina is to 
become a serious enterprise player and has so far been sorely ignored 
aspect of the product strategy.

Robert Brenstein