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UFO:AI Release cycle

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jesper:
Hello UFO community

I have played version 2.2 of UFO:AI and followed the development on and of since. When following the development I have been astonished to see the long development cycle between releases. Is this a choice or a coincidence?

My advice to you would be to change the development  cycle, I will explain why in the following.

Open source applications usually have a short release cycle with close contact to the community. This increases involvement from existing users and generates new competent users. This is claimed in the book The cathedral and the bazar by Eric Raymond, its interesting reading under any circumstances. Examples of cool OSS applications that follow these guidelines: Wine, Pidgin, Firefox .... many others.

As a outsider (potential coder, i guess) I find it very difficult to understand what is going on. Today I checked the TODO/2.3: 4 months old, the changelog/2.3: A YEAR OLD! The info is outdated.

What I wanted to check was the status of 2.3. Perhaps some details on what to expect in 2.3. I found outdated pages.

A good thing is the monthly update on the main page, but i do not think it is enough. I would have a static release cycle with a release every 3-9 months. And document the changes and the feature requests and present them in a simple manner.

Well it is you project, use my feedback as you see fit, but please at least consider my recommendation.

Thanks for an interesting project.

Jesper Jakobsen

DiDiT:

--- Quote from: jesper on April 18, 2010, 02:05:04 pm ---What I wanted to check was the status of 2.3. Perhaps some details on what to expect in 2.3.

--- End quote ---

Then, Why don't you just Get and Compile the latest Dev build of 2.3?
Maybe then you could help find and possibly patch any bugs you find, thus speeding up the release of a stable version?

EDIT:
also have you seen this?
It might help solve some of your questions.

jesper:
Hi DiDiT,

Getting and compiling is an option, but a bit cumbersome when the intention is just to get a feel of the changes. Besides a textual description is more acurate since I would probably not notice alot of the changes.

I am not really able to help in development since I don't know what needs work, as argued in my original post. You are right that I might accidentally trip over some vital bug, I would consider that unlikely.

The compiled version wont give information as to the status since I don't know the milestones. Having read the long forum post did not make me any less confused...

./Jesper

DiDiT:
Actually, now that I think about it... Your right. I cant seem to find any set milestones or targets for this project myself, But then again, most of the Updates I'v seen while I'v been here are random, Spontaneous user submitted affairs. 

Still, The games completely changed since 2.2, here you can find downloadable pre-built 2.3 Dev installers for windows but I'm assuming that you use windows.

From there, make suggestions and... Well, I'm not really sure what else I can do for you.
 

 

Duke:

--- Quote from: jesper on April 19, 2010, 10:25:43 pm ---I am not really able to help in development since I don't know what needs work, as argued in my original post.

--- End quote ---
I agree that the docs about project status and todos could be improved, but you'll find 100% of the things you can help with as a *coder* on the SF-bugtracker. We are NOT lacking features.

btw we had/have milestones, but we're lacking certain content from certain people, so the devs spend the waiting time fixing more or less important bugs. Which isn't that bad if you want my opinion ;)

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