[Qgis-developer] QGIS 2.0 Timeline updates

[Tim Sutton]

Hi all

Just an updated timeline for the release:

* Hard feature freeze effective today (11 June 2013) - this means no
new features will make their way into the final QGIS 2.0 release.
* String freeze 25 June 2013 (only critical string changes needed for
bug fixing will be allowed after that point)

The actual release date will be determined when we have dealt with the
blocker tickets in the ticket queue.

I know many of you have been patiently waiting for the 2.0 release but
there were many features that needed polishing and inclusion and this
has caused some delays. Right now we have a lot of work to do to make
QGIS 2.0 stable and usable for everyone. As a general appeal could I
encourage you to:

* take the master builds (snapshots of the codebase that will become
QGIS 2.0) for a test drive and report issues you encounter using it
with your favourite datasets. Master builds are freely downloadable at
 [1] (there is a standalone windows build here : [2])
* if you have the financial means to do so, sponsor the fixing of one
or more blocker issues [3]. The best way to do this is to make direct
contact with a QGIS developer and negotiate a small contract with them
to do the work. There are also a number of commercial support
providers who may be able to offer this service for you listed on our
web site [4]

Lastly here are some frequently asked questions and answers:

Q: Why dont you make alpha / beta releases?

A: We have nightly builds of master for all major platforms - its a
waste of effort to also make alpha etc releases.

Q: You said the release would be ready last week / month / year /
century. What gives?

A: We are an open source project dependent largely on volunteer effort
and the sponsored contributions from a number of companies. We don't
have any dedicated team focused entirely on stabilisation and bug
fixing. This means that we can't just pour more staff / resources into
making sure a release comes out on time, instead we release when the
software is ready.

Q: So QGIS 2.0 is going to be perfect?

A: Probably not, but you can help us to make it as close to perfect as
humanly feasible. We highly recommend that you test with the master
build and help to identify issues by means of carefully lodged tickets
in our issue tracker [5]. Even with all the QA we can do, you should
still expect to encounter some issues since the code base has had a
massive overhaul and it is not possible for us to test all scenarios
that our hundreds of thousands of users use QGIS for.

Q: Is QGIS 2.0 going to break all my styling / projects / plugins?

A: While we are trying to preserve backwards compatibility where
possible, in some cases we couldn't / don't want to preserve
compatibility due to architectural changes in the code base.

Q: Is it true that the name 'Quantum GIS' is changing?

A: Yes, from 2.0 on, Quantum GIS will be called QGIS (note is all
upper case) and we will drop the 'auntum' part from the name.

Q: How do I be awesome like Asia Air Survey (our Gold Sponsor - see
their home page at http://www.asiaairsurvey.com/) and sponsor QGIS?

A: We would be more than happy to welcome any new sponsors wishing to
support our project. If you would like to sponsor QGIS, please contact
Paolo Cavallini <cavallini AT faunalia.it> for more information. As
well as helping to make QGIS 2.0 a reality, sponsors well receive
prominent placement on the front page of our web site.

Q: I hear the Queen of England uses QGIS to keep track of model the
movement of Corgi dogs around Windsor Castle - it is true?

A: This is purely a rumour, though I am sure there must be a grain of
truth to it...

[1] http://download.qgis.org
[2] http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/wiki/Download#13-Master
[3] http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/issues?query_id=23
[4] http://www.qgis.org/en/commercial-support.html
[5] http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/issues

--
Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  Manager)
==============================================
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Visit http://linfiniti.com to find out about:
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 * FOSS Consulting Services

Skype: timlinux
Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
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