[Bf-committers] Roadmap 2.5 proposal

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi all,

A rough big picture for the next 11 months I've put in this schedule:
http://www.blender.org/bf/2009-planning.png

Some notes to understand the basics behind the proposed schedule:

Durian lasts either 6.5 or 9 months... we only know this early 
november. It means that some of our film development targets can shift 
a bit.

I've split the development targets basically in these steps:

2.5 0: Get back at least what worked in 2.4x
        (with clear exceptions, like py im/export scripts)
2.5 1: Wrap up what's minimal required for 2.5
        (Make a feasible pick of all things we need now, and what to do 
later.)

This then should be the (first) version usable for docs or books.

All of the other new development projects (bmesh, render, etc) move to 
after this deadline, which we define in three intermediate release 
steps, for example:

2.5 2: BMesh, modeling projects

2.5 3: Animation features

2.5 4: Render/composite features

Which (not coincidentally!) aligns with the durian project anyway. To 
celebrate a succesful Durian film we can then move to a 2.6 version in 
the summer after, which also should wrap up and complete all 2.5 
projects and expectations.

I also propose to officially make this a "2.5 series" of releases, and 
work towards a 2.6 version with release codes 2.5.0, 2.5.1 etc. Not 
very important... but probably communicates better.

Finally I propose to accept we do more releases this year... whatever 
we name them, 'test binaries' or 'upgrades' or 'candidates'. Making 
more official builds will help us a lot.

This schedule is nice topic for discussion here, online and in the 
meeting tomorrow. Will then summarize all feedback in an updated 
schedule!
I'll also then like to know all the other developer targets and 
predictions... like for the game engine, dynamics, video, sound, etc 
etc.

Thanks,

-Ton-



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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands