[ardour-dev] post 0.99

[Paul Davis]

The release of 0.99 marks the end of code development for the 1.0
release plan for ardour. There will be no more code changes before a
1.0 release.

This is obviously a somewhat momentous occasion. Ardour still has many
bugs, some of them serious, but it is a useful and powerful tool with
many capabilities unrivalled by any other Linux audio application, and
some that are only found in a few proprietary packages. The bugs will
get worked on in due time, but it is time to switch gears in the
development process and move to a more contemporary GUI toolkit so
that we have a solid basis for addressing usability concerns and new
UI designs.

However, in a unanimous decision by core Ardour developers, we have
also decided that there will be no 1.0 release. We will move directly
to the 2.0 release once the port to GTK2 is complete. There are lots
of reasons for this, but I don't want to try to defend or revisit this
decision: it is what is. We hope to see 2.0 emerge very quickly.

Because there are no code changes planned post 0.99 for the 1.0 path,
and because we don't plan on any functional changes for the 2.0
release, I request that all translators and potential translators get
to work as soon as possible to complete translations for their
languages. There will be NO changes to the strings in ardour 2.0, so
your translations will be good for that version (we hope).

The issues that were slated to be addressed in the 0.99->1.0
transition will now be deferred until the release of 2.0. These are
mostly concerned with translations and some packaging questions.

The 2.0 development process will utilize a new CVS repository, called
ardour2. This is already partly populated, but I or Taybin will
announce when it is ready to be used. This repository will be open to
anyone with access to ardour; nightly CVS tarballs will be
generated from this repository once it is up and running.

No development work on 1.0 is planned: no commits will be done on the
1.0 tree other than for immediate build problems uncovered in the next
1-3 days. Some friendly developers may offer fixes for specific
problems in the 1.0 tree on an as-needed basis.

Code monkeys: please enter the starting area. Your starting numbers
will be assigned shortly.

--p