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Maybe try stamping your feet?

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Rabbit Web | Cairns Web Design | http://rabbitweb.com.au

and have a little fit on the floor...

An updated status report and roadmap is now available for the road to 1.6 beta http://community.joomla.org/blogs/commu ... tatus.html

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"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

"Future Release Predictions
It is impossible to give a definite time for future releases of Joomla 1.6. Our best "guess" for the availability of future versions is early June 2010 for Beta 1 and July of 2010 for the first stable version. The ability to deliver at these times is directly proportional to the amount of volunteer help the project receives."

While I'm sure that the individual developers are doing what they can to get a beta released, we are now in the position where the beta is due about 2.5 years after J1.5 and months after Alpha2, with a release date that is sliding every time it is reached. Clearly the final version will follow some time after the beta, and many users will not feel able to switch until key extensions are updated (which presumably may easily be 6 months after that).

What plans does OSM have to insert some confidence into the process? I appreciate that there has been an increased effort to at least keep everyone informed, but reading these posts anyone who suggests that the slipping timeframe is unacceptable gets told to (a) stop moaning and program it themselves or (b) is told that J1.5 is absolutely fine, neither of which are particularly helpful positions.

Is Joomla going to suffer because of the apparently slow progress, or does the community feel that since it is free that is all that can be expected? It seems a comparatively slow update cycle, particularly given that the list of improvements is not that long (albeit that some are fundamental, such as ACL).

I have seen another open source system take 4 years to update from 1.4 to 2.0 so i look at it this gives me time to test and learn the new version before i need to have a live site.
if everyone pitched in when the find a problem and a fix for it then it would help move things along. I had a couple problem that I fixed and saw the solution on line about the same time.
besides i prefer that 1.6 be bug free as possible

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Loyd
http://k4lch.info
http://volstatehosting.com

I have been hoping for an updated release estimate, so I’m sincerely grateful for the information.

However, I’m also deeply disappointed by the substantial and ongoing slippage of the target-date for a stable-release.

I understand and sympathize with the reasons why deadlines are difficult to meet with such a large project staffed entirely by volunteers. But this doesn’t negate the fact that this ongoing lack of certainty represents a major barrier for anyone wanting to use Joomla for important projects, plus makes it difficult for extension creators to manage their own development cycles.

And before anyone accuses me of naivety, YES I know there’s no magic bullet! Slippage can happen in any major project. But the reality is that some open source projects fair better than others in terms of the speed and reliability of their development cycles, and Joomla is presently performing very badly in this regard.

Are any steps being taken to create faster and more predictable development time-frames for future releases?

Stop whining...
Developers had said again and again that it all comes down to how many volunteers that can put in hours.
Use 1.5 if you need to build a site today, 1.6 won't be out faster because everybody's nagging about it being delayed.
You don't pay for it, they don't get payed, and imagine spending hours after hours of your free time developing 1.6 and then get people complaining about it....

I just feel it's to much crying and very little appreciation for all the hard work people put in.

... peace

The point is that we are not 'whining', and in particular we are not whining at the developers, because everyone acknowledges that they are doing what they can. But its a bit like asking why a train is late. It usually not the fault of the staff on the train, but something more systemic (management, economics, whatever). Both of the comments above were aimed at the community/OSM rather than nagging the developers, and I think that both of us tried to preface our comments by saying that it wasn't a whinge but trying to be calmer question about systemic failures and how they could be solved in future.


I don't think we expect any increase in speed to 1.6 delivery. I (and I think the other commenter) was asking whether we thought the management of this update was going well and if not how it could be done better. I was also asking whether we felt Joomla! as a whole was damaged by this i.e. whether, in the absence of J1.6 and the undoubted improvements it will contain, people will use e.g. Drupal rather than J1.5. Joomla is a free product, but is still in a competitive market, in effect, with other products which are also free.


We all acknowledge and appreciate the work that the developers do, and we wouldn't be here if we didn't think J1.5 was good and what is planned for J1.6 was a huge step forward. We all appreciate the fact that the software is free and this is of course a big driver to its adoption - not least with the non-profit organisation I do the website for. However, in clubs, charities and other non-profits I've dealt with/worked in it it has always been apparent the split between those organisations who have the "because we're volunteers just be grateful for what you get" ethos, and those who take the "being volunteers doesn't mean that we can ignore good mangement/financial prudence/whatever". In improving its communications, OSM appears to be heading to the latter, and that's great. However, J1.6 is OSM's key product, so that is where the focus falls. For J1.6, responses generally fall into the former type.

Every non-profit of any type struggles to find sufficient volunteers of sufficient quality who can devote sufficient time - that is, frankly, the weakness of voluntary organisations - but some organisations appear to be able to work around this (e.g. by splitting up and de-skilling jobs, time limiting them for those unable to commit, or by raising money somewhere and paying for skilled staff). So these posts aren't about the developers who do the work (we all agreee how important they are, just as we all see how important key volunteers are to clubs/charities/etc that we work with) its about the other bit - whether the support organisation around them is working well.


I hope I've dispelled that concern - at least in respect of the developers and the guys on the ground.

@EdPh

You're of course spot on on most things, i was reacting on that some posts in this thread says how disappointed they are since they've read somewhere that 1.6 was predicted to be out as beta already and now they can't start any new projects and so on.
All i say is as long as a date isn't promised (and how could it be) people should relax a little and not whine about the Joomla team has let them down... that won't get them 1.6 faster or help anyone.

Now i'm done whining... cheers

I reckon there's a lot of wisdom in EdPh's post. Nice one EdPh.

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Rabbit Web | Cairns Web Design | http://rabbitweb.com.au

Very well said EdPh! Thank you

As for you Jmx, please read my post again and tell me whether you think it was fair and/or helpful to characterize me as a "whiner" and "nagger"? I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that I'd made an effort to be clear that I'm NOT ungrateful, and NOT ignorant of the challenges.

And to those of you who argue that just because Joomla is free and/or staffed by volunteers, it is impossible to set and meet deadlines, I think you’re kidding yourselves and selling Joomla short!

I have been involved in massive events involving hundreds of volunteers and totally inflexible deadlines. And each and every project has met its final deadline. So I know from personal experience that it is possible for large volunteer organizations to set and meet deadlines.

I've also spent more than 20-years as a business consultant working-with and advising the highest levels of management in numerous large companies. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that most big companies and managers of major projects HATE uncertainty! So the ongoing snails-pace, and worse-still, lack of deadlines for Joomla's development is inevitably a major impediment to Joomla's adoption by major players.

No-doubt many people are happy to have Joomla be the CMS of choice for hobbyists. But I know that a great many others are trying to build real businesses around Joomla. Is that a mistake? Should we be looking elsewhere? Presently, it's impossible to know!

Personally, I have a large project that can’t be undertaken until 1.6 is released. This is not a hobby site. People's jobs are riding on whether or not 1.6 is released in a timely fashion. And no doubt other Joomla users have their own predicaments.

For that reason, I asked what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question:



Please note the tense. The question is not even about the 1.6 release!

With the right management and planning it would be possible to create faster and more predictable development cycles. But of course that will only happen if the community emphasizes the need for this, and management takes the appropriate steps to fix or at least mitigate the current problems.

Finally, I want to make it crystal clear that I am grateful, VERY GRATEFUL, to each and every person who has donated their time to this project!

My post was not intended as an exercise in "whining" or "nagging". It was a simple attempt to politely inquire about an issue that many users are legitimately concerned about.

There are a lot of good / wise posts on both "sides" but ONE thing has to be declared and clearer as possible: if you can, well, help Joomla, that is... helping yourself in the same time.

Well, I see in our forums too many "big players" around asking when, how and so on... but please, a helping professional hand?

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former Q&T WorkGroup Joomla member - Italian Translation Team Member

In early 2011, we will be launching a web development start-up, specializing in open source. It is our intention to commit to using a specific CMS. If we choose Joomla, we can probably lend a hand But first we need to decide if Joomla is the right choice, and that depends largely on whether the massive uncertainty re development time-frames is likely to be ongoing.

I posit that discussions of how long the beta and final releases may take are OFFTOPIC in a thread about the Alpha 2 release announcement.

An interesting question

This is the post that kinda got that ball rolling:



Do you think Brian was "OFFTOPIC"?

And if so, where do you posit that this discussion belongs?

Let's don't get picky. Until a forum is opened up for 1.6, this discussion thread is as good a place as any to discuss 1.6 issues - alpha or otherwise.

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Regards, Dave
http://www.kiwaniswest.org
http://www.huelsmann.us

Let me just be clear that I was not saying anything at all about Brian or his post. That post made no statement at all regarding "how long the beta and final releases may take" (my words).

@newGroove,

The project has most certainly taken steps such as implementing a http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla/the-project/sponsorship.html through which your company and others can contribute directly to supporting our key developers or can commit in house development time and investing in some paid development/development leadership. if your business depends on Joomla! I posit that you should be putting a percentage of your gross into the project in one way or the other. Joomla! is no hobby project anymore, but that means that the commercial community can't treat it like one either.

I also think that the new release strategy that was announced not long ago will move us away from these mega releases into a one major feature plus whatever is ready model.

I know that when I was president of OSM nothing was with me every day as much as the huge number of people who were depending on this project for their livelihoods. While there are some who would like to go back to being a smaller project with lower coding standards and more of a "let's put on a show" approach, I think there is no turning back now. But to make that happen companies like yours need to do their part.

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So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. MLK 1964.
http://officialjoomlabook.com Get it at http://www.joomla.org/joomla-press-official-books.html Buy a book, support Joomla!.

@newGroove,

Sorry if i offended you, that wasn't my intention, but i read your earlier post as a bit whiny (English isn't my native language so i might have miss-read)
If you read the whole thread you will notice a few quite demanding and whiny posts though, and that's why i thought it needed to be said.
No offense to anyone, and absolute kudos to all developers.

Thanks, as that's probably half of the solution to the question asked. I appreciate too that ACL is by its nature all pervasive and so was always going to impact on everything else built so 1.6 was always going to have a particular issue.

Separately (and this may be off topic for those posit-ing those things!) is there a move to increase the number of developers working on the project? I saw your point about sponsorship, but do you know what is being done to facilitate input by (competent) volunteers?

Everyone can work on Joomla. Just join the developer mailinglists on google groups (joomla-dev-cms, joomla-dev-framework, joomla-dev-general)

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god doesn't play dice with the universe. not after that drunken night with the devil where he lost classical mechanics in a game of craps.

Since the creation of the Internet, the Earth's rotation has been fueled, primarily, by the collective spinning of English teachers in their graves.

For the record, I am NOT claiming to be a "major player" I was simply attempting to offer some insight into what these guys want and need, since I have had the opportunity to do consulting work for a significant number of large companies.

Presently, I am in start-up mode for two online projects...

The first is a large website which specifically requires Joomla 1.6. I had an investor, but they pulled-out because of my inability to predict when it was going to be online. Thus this project is effectively moth-balled until 1.6 stable is released and I can (hopefully) secure new funding.

The second is a web development start-up which will specialize in Joomla powered sites (that is unless I'm compelled to opt for a rival CMS). This project will be entirely self-funded, so anyone looking to me for financial support in the short-term is likely to be disappointed. That said, we can probably contribute some code once we're up-and-running

@mcsmom

Many thanks for your insight!



Is there a link to the specifics of this change in policy? It sounds very encouraging! And I agree with EdPh that this is likely to solve a large part of the problem, but it's probably not a total solution.

Are there any other new strategies/policies in place to address the issue of timely and predictable development cycles?

And if not, perhaps we could open an official (sticky?) thread to brainstorm solutions?

@Jmx

Thanks for the clarification

The thing to do is to follow the mailing lists and the community blogs.

http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-d ... 06717a1045

is one.

Elin

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So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. MLK 1964.
http://officialjoomlabook.com Get it at http://www.joomla.org/joomla-press-official-books.html Buy a book, support Joomla!.

Can any body list out new features of J1.6.. Basically I am looking for Articles Enhancement similar to K2.

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cmsGalaxy Team, Web Developer, Bangalore, India
Website Design - Development - SEO - Joomla
www.cmsGalaxy.com

\Why not try it out for yourself on a localhost (non-public) test bed using the nightly build or SVN and sign up to the developer thread, full details at http://developer.joomla.org also check out viewtopic.php?f=9&t=454211&start=660 as a lot of information available within that

This URL points to page 23 of this very thread which your message also happens to appear on.
It's like deja vu all over again.

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Do you want to be able to associate a content item (artlcle) with more than 1 category in Joomla!?
Please add your voice to the following thread: viewtopic.php?f=580&t=525316

the main focus ideas are in that page

All to do now is to follow links and articles, groups and SVN.

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former Q&T WorkGroup Joomla member - Italian Translation Team Member

Will Joomla 1.6 have comments similar to blogs?

The broad goals of Joomla 1.6 are to:

•implement an expanded access control system;
•implement a nested categories solution;
•add a commenting system;
•and standardise the way extensions are built using the MVC framework.

The comment system can be disabled for that specific article.
The comment is in a flat view (as I can see up to now).

It isn't as Drupal does and quite skeptical to use that as a forum's thread...

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former Q&T WorkGroup Joomla member - Italian Translation Team Member