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From: Jim Jagielski <jim@jaguNET.com>
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Subject: Re: Post 2.4.25
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 10:52:23 -0500
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archived-at: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 15:57:07 -0000


> On Dec 24, 2016, at 8:29 AM, Rich Bowen <rbowen@rcbowen.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/23/2016 03:52 PM, Jim Jagielski wrote:
>> Personally, I don't think that backporting stuff to
>> 2.4 prevents or disallows development on 2.6/3.0. In
>> fact, I think it helps. We can easily do both...
>> after all, we are still "working" on 2.2.
>> 
>> As I have also stated, my personal belief is that
>> 2.4 is finally reaching some traction, and if we
>> "turn off" development/enhancement of 2.4, we will
>> stop the uptake of 2.4 in its track. We need to keep
>> 2.4 viable and worthwhile we, at the same time, work
>> on 2.6/3.0. I think we all understand that getting
>> 2.6/3.0 out will not be a quick and/or painless
>> action.
> 
> From my perspective, watching Nginx gain traction through superior
> marketing, and channeling Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss in assuming that
> everything which I have never done must be simple, I, for one, would
> like to see us release a 2.6, and more generally, to release a 2.x every
> 2 years, or less, rather than every 4 years, or more.
> 
> My opinion on this, I would emphasize, is 100% marketing, and 0%
> technical. I realize we "don't do" marketing, but if we want to still ve
> having the fun of doing this in another 20 years, it may be necessary to
> get our name out there a little more frequently in terms of doing new
> things. We are frankly not great at telling the world about the cool new
> things we're doing.
> 

Yeah, right now the way we are "doing marketing" is by
continually adding features and enhancements to 2.4... It
is what keeps 2.4 relevant and is what either keeps current
httpd users using httpd or maybe help those on the fence decide
on httpd instead of nginx/whatever. 

My point is that even having a 6 month minimal (and that
is, IMO, widely optimistic and unrealistic) of "no new
features for 2.4" means that we are basically giving people
reasons to drop httpd. It would be a widely different story
if (1) trunk was ready to release and (2) we "committed" to
releasing trunk quickly by focusing on low-hanging fruit
which would make lives happier and better for our end-users.
As I said, my fear is that we will not be able to "control"
ourselves in limiting what is in 2.6, which will push the
actual release far past the point where it is even relevant.

To be clear, if our goal was "Fork trunk as 2.5 NOW, polish
and tune 2.5 'as-is' with minimal major refactoring with
the goal of getting 2.6 out ASAP" then yeah, sure, the idea
of "no new features in 2.4" would have some merit. But based
on current conversation, it's obvious that, at least to me,
that won't happen and we will be continually refactoring 2.6
to make it a 3.0. Again, you don't "stop" development on a
current release until the next release is ready or, at least,
"this close" to being ready. You don't sacrifice the present,
nor do you leave your users in that limbo.