[Bf-committers] version naming

[Mike Pan]

As far as I know, the first stable release will be called Blender 2.60, not
2.50.

2.60 would be a fine name as it denotes the rather large jump in feature and
UI from Blender 2.49.  Blender 2.50 would not be a very intuitive name to
many users(especially non-power users), who would consider 2.49 to be almost
equivalent to 2.50, which is far from true.

We won't be able to wipe the internet clean of Blender 2.4 tutorials and
resources in the next 4 month, and in order to hint at the users that the
next release will be significantly different from the older 2.4x series can
only be done through a new branding effort.  So, I am all for calling it
Blender 3, or at least Blender 2.60.

Power-users don't seems to care about the versioning, for all we care, we
can name Blender with the SVN revision numbers.  But IMO proper versioning
is as important as the recode, to signify the milestone that we've reached
with this huge refactor.

-mike




On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Paolo Ciccone <phciccone at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello.
>
> There seems to be a bit of misconception about what was asked. This thread
> has turned from the initial request, to a debate about what would be the
> right version number for Blender.
> I apologize if I "fueled the fire" of that, the original question remains,
> though.
> Educators, like myself, and authors of books and DVDs that will help
> understand Blender are in need of knowing what the program will be called.
> It's not a matter of preferences,
> it's a matter of having a clear way to refer to the program and being able
> to prepare material that refers to Blender in the *proper* way. This is of
> benefit for everybody. It seems that
> some developer find the issue unimportant or irrelevant. Be assured that
> it's not.
> If you worked on just one release of a product, not a program, a product,
> in
> the software industry you should know how much time and care is spent in
> taking that decision.
>
> If you spend hours and hours in coding for Blender you should care if
> people
> will benefit from the fruit of so much effort. It's the role of people like
> me to spread the word and help users
> adopt Blender. At the end it's for the benefit of everybody.
> I dedicate two full days a week  to promoting Blender. This includes
> finding
> a good topic for a tutorial, recording it, editing it, publishing it at
> Creative COW, blogging about it,
> respond to the forum requests, etc.
> Some of the feedback that I received included "I had Blender for a year,
> could not figure it out, now I can, thanks to your tutorials" or "I thought
> I could never use 3D, now you made
> it accessible for me". I'm not bragging about it, I mention it because the
> final point of making a program is to have people using it. Otherwise all
> that coding is pointless. Preaching to
> the choir can be very rewarding but it doesn't go that far.
>
> There is a difference between an Array, a List or a Dictionary. You, as a
> developer, would not like ambiguity in that. Educators and users of your
> program don't like a similar ambiguity
> in how to refer to the darn program.
> Want to call it 2.6? Fine, but let's decide here and now how the program
> will be known to the public at large. Development versions don't count in
> that scheme. I have been telling people to stay clear from
> development versions because they are not production quality. But there is
> a
> point when the program ends the Beta phase and  is released. That is what
> the public at large will need to use.
>
> What should we call it?
>
> It's not a hard decision or one that conflicts with the development. We are
> at a point where this is becoming an issue. Every day. Let's make a
> decision, update the websites and stick to the plan.
> It will give a sense of stability, a sense of what to expect and it will
> provide a clear way to refer to the program.
>
> What you do, as a developer, is crucial and important. What we do, as
> educators, is important too. When you dismiss this issue as "not important"
> you are belittling our effort and undermining endless
> hours of planning and design on how to make the future version of Blender a
> success.
>
>  We are not asking for new features, we are just in need to have one simple
> "label" decided, possibly in a week or so.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> Cheers.
> ---
> Paolo Ciccone
> www.preta3d.com
> www.paolociccone.com
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