[GRASS5] The status of 5.0

[M Lennert]

>On 23 Mar 02, at 8:39, Markus Neteler wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 11:24:11AM -0700, Roger Miller wrote:
> > Besides, I doubt that just calling 5.0 "stable" is going to net very many
> > more users then it has right now.  To the extent that new users do try it 
> > we're likely to lose new users, because the software *isn't* stable.
> > The fact that you would even suggest that several minor releases would
> > immediately follow the initial release just proves that it isn't stable.
> 
> This sounds like a small conflict between the "release often" and the
> "release stable" paradigm...

I think this is exactly the point, and it has to be a conscious decision 
depending on what are aims are. If we want to target the average Esri user 
who doesn't want to do much more than displaying a few maps and who 
doesn't have a computer wiz around, then we should wait to be as bug free 
as possible (with Glynn's qualification about invisible bugs in mind). But then 
we probably also have to have working and user-friendly gui and map 
production modules before releasing anything "stable".

I think we should not forget what Grass is, nor what our strenghts and 
weaknesses are. Grass is a GPL program, and for me that entails a certain 
belief in the bazaar paradigm. At the same time it is a program that we want 
people to use in highly complex production environments without fearing loss 
of data or hours of work for apparently "stupid" tasks. But we can't compete , 
yet (and maybe we shouldn't even try) on the level of point-and-click features 
and holding users' hands.

Very honestly, I have the feeling that we have a very powerful program with a 
lot of very stable and very useful code. Maybe we should make a simple 
survey on the users' list to find out how many people are using 4.3 and how 
many 5.0 in a production environment. And maybe we could even ask them 
their opinion about the release question. I think we should honor (and 
trust) the present users and work with them instead of worrying about 
potential future users. I am more interested in having a working and useful 
GIS (and IMHO letting users discover some of the bugs is the way to get 
there) than thinking about market shares because I think the latter will come 
with the former. And there is no reason to think that Grass will die out in the 
near future just because of some bugs.

> (oops, we don't have good cartographic output etc.) 

ps.map is pretty good, just not very user friendly...

Moritz