Release strategy (Was: public beta?)

[Curry]

I would like to make a suggestions to RunRev, and the reason I am 
posting it here on the list is to see if other people agree with the 
suggestion, and if so, I would ask you to let RunRev know that you 
agree, maybe off-list if that's the most appropriate way.

The old Rev 1.1.1 engine has some glitches with Mac OSX Jaguar that 
must be avoided. However, the problem is already fixed in the 
engine--but there still haven't been any new releases to the engine.

I would say that waiting for new features is not too bad. However 
many months you wait for a new capability is acceptable, since you 
can work quite well with what you have now. No problem there, I think 
people will be happy and patient and look forward to the great new 
stuff all in good time. That's how I feel about it. But OS 
incompatibilities are a different story--with something like that 
which affects the features you currently have, you want a fix sooner. 
And it may be possible that this kind of situation with Appearance 
Manager or something else happens again, so I think considering a 
long term strategy would be a good idea.

My proposal is for RunRev to have a strategy that prioritizes fixes 
for this kind of major issue, so that normally the work would be 
going on with new features and normal bug fixes for a future release 
as usual (and not too much hurry on that) but when there is a big OS 
glitch or something like that, a maintenance release could be offered 
very soon, perhaps simply the last major version of Rev bundled with 
the new MC engine and as few changes as are necessary to make that 
possible. Hopefully the situation wouldn't arise often, but if it 
did, having this kind of plan in place already would help. Plus, it 
might even take off a bit of the pressure off feature releases since 
people aren't also waiting for such vital fixes at the same time. 
(Personally, I would prefer that there's not too much pressure on 
people, it's better for the health.) So, I think there would be 
advantages for both the customers and the developers in having this 
kind of strategy.

Do you think that's a reasonable idea? RunRev, would you consider it?

Thanks,

Curry

(And P.S., just in case anyone would say well why not just get 
Jaguar, yes, that's a way to do it, and I'm considering that right 
now--last year, during October-December, it always seemed like Rev 
would be released soon enough that it wouldn't be necessary. So I 
will be pursuing that option, or using beta testers. But that still 
doesn't take away from the need to have a strategy, since it may not 
be convenient for everyone to upgrade OS right away for one reason or 
another, and avoiding the glitches will still be an added 
complication to development. So when the problem is fixed in the 
engine, it is still necessary to focus on getting that fix to people 
as soon as possible.

And P.P.S., to Toma or anyone who wants to keep track of progress, it 
does help to subscribe to the MetaCard list too, then you can guage 
generally how things are going although not exactly, plus you can try 
out the non Rev-specific features with MC test releases.)