update on the planning

update on the planning

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

I have updated the planning:

http://grub.enbug.org/ReleasePlanning

I'm planning to release next version in one month. This time, I myself will do 
this instead of Marco.

As in the plan, I would like to stabilize GRUB 2 at 1.96. This means that we 
will not introduce any incompatibility after November (from the users' point 
of view). Currently, I'm going to apply the same policy as GRUB 1.90-1.96, 
that is, we still accept new features but not incompatible changes. So, if 
you want to change anything, you must propose (and implement) it before 
November.

Do you agree with this policy? This is just a plan, so I can change it, if you 
don't like.

After 1.96, my plan is not clear yet. Now is too early to discuss this.

Okuji

Re: update on the planning

[Marco Gerards]

"Yoshinori K. Okuji" <okuji@enbug.org> writes:

> As in the plan, I would like to stabilize GRUB 2 at 1.96. This means that we 
> will not introduce any incompatibility after November (from the users' point 
> of view). Currently, I'm going to apply the same policy as GRUB 1.90-1.96, 
> that is, we still accept new features but not incompatible changes. So, if 
> you want to change anything, you must propose (and implement) it before 
> November.

Eventually this has to happen if we want people to use GRUB 2.  So I
agree with that.  It's to soon for me to determine if November is
reasonable or not.  But if we want to pick a date, this date is as
good as any.  At least it is not too soon or late for my feeling.

> Do you agree with this policy? This is just a plan, so I can change it, if you 
> don't like.

Sure.

> After 1.96, my plan is not clear yet. Now is too early to discuss this.

For me it will mean that scripting should be finished soon.  At least
the rough work and functionality.  Same for networking interfaces, the
GUI layering splitup and we have to determine before that what should
be a command and what should go into a variable.  But let's not
discuss this right here, right now.

I am just telling you I would focus on this so GRUB for the users its
perspective will stabilize.  So after the networking work, I will focus
less on actual feature and more on frameworking and general design
issues we talked about earlier.

--
Marco

Re: update on the planning

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

Hi Marco,

On Friday 05 May 2006 13:48, Marco Gerards wrote:
> Eventually this has to happen if we want people to use GRUB 2.  So I
> agree with that.  It's to soon for me to determine if November is
> reasonable or not.  But if we want to pick a date, this date is as
> good as any.  At least it is not too soon or late for my feeling.

:)

> For me it will mean that scripting should be finished soon.  At least
> the rough work and functionality.  Same for networking interfaces, the
> GUI layering splitup and we have to determine before that what should
> be a command and what should go into a variable.  But let's not
> discuss this right here, right now.

Please do not harass yourself with this. ;)

I mean that GRUB 2 should not introduce incompatibility after 1.96 _against 
GRUB 2_ rather than GRUB Legacy. So as long as you are careful, you can add 
more features later. In fact, I have added a lot of new features into GRUB 
Legacy without losing any backward compatibility. Since GRUB 2 has a cleaner 
design, I expect that this would be even easier.

The goal is that the user can start to use GRUB 2 while not scared of a 
breakage due to incompatible changes. This also eases the documentation 
significantly. In GRUB Legacy, this way worked very well. I was even 
surprised that it was not necessary to release a public version at all. :p

As you said, it is necessary to make this kind of decision at a point, 
although it has been fun that we don't have to care about incompatibility for 
these 3 years. Yet, we still have 6 months in my plan, so you don't have to 
feel threatened.

Okuji