[Qgis-developer] Realease and blockers

[Vincent Picavet]

Hello,

Le vendredi 6 juin 2014 11:08:57, Paolo Cavallini a écrit :
> The new QGIS version will be released very soon. There are still 58
> blocking issues, growing. Some of them are quite nasty. I urge everybody,
> and especially those who use QGIS in large organization, saving tons of
> money previously spent in licences, to quickly invest a fraction of these
> savings into fixing some of these. With >1 million users, this seems a
> feasible target.

Could we make a more visible RC release on the website, encouraging testing ?

I think that our user are not used yet to our new release cycle. We really 
should educate them, and lower the barrier to RC testing and bug reporting. As 
for now, even installing the RCs is complicated, so is bug reporting.

What about modifying the RCs so that :
* we have a bug report feature in the help menu, allowing to create an osgeo 
user, search for bug and report if not found ?
* we add a splash-screen or a first pop-up window stating clearly that there is 
a need for bugfixes, and therefore a strong and quick need for funding ?
Maybe even adding links to supporting companies as stated on the website, so 
that users/clients can contact them directly, in addition to the sponsoring 
informations ?
* we add to this popup a big "donate now" button linking to paypal / flattr or 
whatever simple system for micro-donation, and a bitcoin address
* we propose to optionnally subscribe to a specific qgis-newsletter mailing 
list, where we can reach our userbase with RC download links, and funding 
requests (with a privacy protection + no spam statement)

This is a bit late for 2.4 of course, but this is IMHO a way to enlarge our 
tester base, as well as our funders.
What we need is not a different release cycle, but more education. Adopting  
more push-oriented communication methods seams the way to go.

My 2 cents,

Vincent