[development] Drupal 6 release schedule

[James Walker]

On 1/31/07 5:30 PM, Victor Kane wrote:
> As someone who is new to Drupal (maybe I have no business giving my
> opinion at all, but I think it should be said in a flameless way) but
> not at all to software engineering, and who is just beginning to
> architect and author web applications based on Drupal, I would say
> that I denote a slight contradiction between some of the thorny issues
> being debated on this list (everything is a node vs. don't overload
> node hook system; developing an orthogonal API for the various API's,
> etc., etc., etc.,), and starting a code freeze in four months. I just
> don't see these being resolved in four months.
> 
> I sort of perhaps naively assume that it would make no sense making
> another major release without dealing with those problems.
>

It's an interesting point. One thing to keep in mind, however, is the 
mental effect of having a "hard" deadline. As anyone who has been around 
for a few release cycles can attest - there is a disproportionate flurry 
of patch submissions "at the deadline". So having a "hard" deadline is 
largely motivational. To get people thinking & started on their "big 
ideas" for the next drupal.

Drupal always has, and always will be 'released when ready'.

> Your damned if you do and damned if you don't: if you don't you "fall
> behind the web 2 race for splashiness"; if you do, you are painting
> yourself into a corner and risking everything drupal stands for:
> cleanness, well-thought out stuff, lean and mean...

Well, I don't think drupal has every really aspired to being splashy... 
again, the release dates are more about keeping drupal moving forward 
than trying to keep up with or "beat" any other platform.

> On the other hand, if "Drupal 6" is drupal 5 debugged and jquery up
> front usability gains, etc., then that is ok, would be an advance, no
> matter what you call it.
> 
> But if the rush to freeze also freezes some stuff that depends on the
> thorny points in the middle of the river, so to speak, then that could
> cause problems.

4 months is a *lot* of time in drupal land. Stick around :)
-- 
James Walker :: http://walkah.net/ :: xmpp:walkah at walkah.net