Paul Vinkenoog wrote:

>> >3. As others mentioned, 3+ years since previous major release is way too long. It is so long that it could even kill an application these days. Embardacero shorthened their release cycle, Microsoft shorthened their release cycle (VS 2005, VS 2008, VS 2012, VS 2013!) You see a pattern here? I would be gladly using FB 2.7 now, or 2.9 with few new features instead of waiting forever (yes,3 years seems like forever) for new Firebird.
> This may be a point. I know we don't want to release major versions just for the sake of it, but we also have to be realistic about how people perceive our project and our product. And we want to remain in the public eye.
>
> I think we should seriously consider releasing a new major (3.0, 4.0) or minor (3.1, 3.2) version at least once per year. After all, we do have a product to sell, even if it's for free...

Unlike Embardacero and Microsoft, we do not have to keep the pressure on users
to PAY for updates. Certainly on Microsoft this is the reason for releasing
software rather than having any good reason to ship! Having a 'product' that
simply works 24/7 and never misses a beat is more important than creating the
situation that many projects seem to be falling into these days where users
DON'T update because of the hassle. XP is having to be killed off, but many
people simply don't want the alternative? Why has W8.1 come out - because 8 was
another vista? PHP is going through the same pains where the majority of their
users are on a version which is already end of life or about to be. If a system
is working and doing it's job why change it?

Turning the question around. Is there anything in FB3 that I must have to carry
on supporting customers? I still have FB1.5 sites out in the field because they
work. Those sites are under pressure to move of W2k and XP but only due to
'political pressure' rather than any good technical argument? And 'security
risk' is just another licence to print money :(

As for loosing email as a form of communication ... don't go there! Yes Yahoo
and others do everything they can to push us to 'social media' type services
because that is where they can make money. Heck Yahoo only bought egroups
because they liked the idea of a captive advertising audience, but the backlash
at that time forced them to back down and their current changes have nothing to
do with usability and everything to do with bottom line. So YES we do now have a
reason to move off yahoo, but any replacement must provide an email interface
that works, and many on-line forums don't do that ... because it impacts on
advertising? I've stopped contributing to projects that I can now only access
via on-line means. I don't have time to go ploughing around trying to see if
there is something of interest ... I deal with the stuff that is nicely
displayed on my desktop! How much productivity is lost with people keeping up
with Facebook and Twitter?

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk