[Dovecot] How long to 1.0?

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Marc Perkel <marc at perkel.com>:

> For what it's worth, you are a perfectionist. Far more than most other

Nothing wrong with that.

> programmers. Most 1,0 versions of software aren't early as solid as your
> current Alpha version. I'm not suggesting that you lower your standards
> to everyone elses level but no one expects a 1.0 version to be perfect.

No, but we do expect it to work (not crash, etc) except in very rare
cases.

> And - I can tell you that the Alpha label is definitely hurting you and
> my recommendation as a person with marketing experience is do one or two
> beta versions, call it done and then 1.0 and then start fixing it. If
> you do that and you get a lot more people on board then other people
> will help you track down your bugs.

I am one of the view who have not been able to use dovecot because it
isn't stable enough, and as such I'm one of the few who stands behind
the alpha naming of it.
 
> I don't know what other people think, if we can do a quick poll here,
> but comparing the current Alpha 5 to other 1.0 version of software, I
> think Dovecot is way more solid than most 1.0 versions. In fact, I'd
> give it a 1.3 if it were me. (Hope this makes sense to everyone.)

Count me as one who is still eagerly awaiting a stable 1.0 release, and
who has not had any luck so far with the alpha version up through alpha3
(I've not tried anything since then).

Now, I've noticed a lot of people who say "I use it with hundreds of users"
but I want to use it with thousands, not hundreds, and that does make
a difference.  I also want to use it in a non-heterogeneous system, which
is no doubt 90% of my problem...

When timo thinks it is beta quality, I'll try it out, and hopefully it
will work for me.  Until then, I will wait and suffer with another
solution...

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!