Re: It is time for a feature freeze (it is NOW or never).

[David Kastrup]

Nick Roberts <address@hidden> writes:

>  > >> > > So when do we declare "feature freeze" ?  May 1st ?
>  > >> > May 1st sounds very good to me,
>  > >> Too good to be true ?

>  > > Um, as you seem to be adding many of the new features these
>  > > days, why don't you tell us?
>  > 
>  > As a perpertrator of "last minute feature addition", I can't
>  > complain.  But in any case I think people should from now on
>  > concentrate on bug-fixing (which might include some
>  > interface-changes, admittedly).
> 
> IMHO, any feature freeze is only meaningful if it is accompanied by
> a branch.

No.

> Otherwise new features will have no place to go and will quite
> likely get bundled in with bug-fixes.

New features can go into branches if really necessary.  And we already
_have_ some things like lexical, bidi, multi-tty, unicode and so on in
branches.  So it is not that this is a novelty.  But developers should
get their head wrapped around getting Emacs into releasable state
rather than bothering with new features now, if possible.

> Also, from the mailing list archives, I see that a year elapsed
> between the first pretest and the release of Emacs 21.1. So I would
> like to see a target date for the release so that the "freeze"
> doesn't drag on indefinitely.

Nope.  There is no point in releasing it before it is ready.  And
there is no sense in delaying further once it is ready.  And there is
no point in telling a lot of voluntary that they have to deliver on a
certain date or lose their non-job.

> Well, one can only hope.

And work.  Proofreading the manual is something that needs not be
restricted to core developers.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum