Hi all,
tldr; - Just an update on my earlier email on release status. We're still on pause waiting on blocker bugs, no ETA for release dates yet.
Progress is getting made.
There is a lot of good activity going in by RdH, NPJ2000 and others to get the Mac OS native packaging established. Some of that work has landed already, and screenshots are starting to get passed around.
* https://chat.inkscape.org/file-upload/gPrPtAHfZDnA39yDK/extensions.png
Of the two blocker bugs we're tracking, the test rendering offset bug (#45 in inkscape's gitlab) is well understood now and is down to figuring out the right form of fix, and the extensions bug (#156) has been progressing nicely, although I don't know the exact status at the moment.
We have 17 open bugs milestoned to 1.0:
* https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues?milestone_title=1.0
Ideally we'd drive this list down to zero by release, although if we can close the two Critical bugs and most of the High priority bugs we should be in decent enough shape.
I've been thumbing through other bug reports, crash bugs in particular. There's a lot, but thankfully most are not things ordinary users are going to run into, as they tend to be a bit obscure. But obviously, the more of these we can resolve before final release, the better. Please devote some of your time to looking at bugs, even if you're not a programmer you can do analysis and testing which can be invaluable. Triaging work is also HIGH VALUE right now, most particularly for tagging bugs and assigning importance levels to all bugs in the main issue tracker.
Chris and Maren collected a listing of problems they'd love to see fixed, from an actual product usability point of view:
* http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/1.0_Release_Bug_Fix_List
These need to be migrated to gitlab, milestoned for 1.0, and set as High priority. Great way to score levels in the bug game, while directly helping towards making the software stronger.
So, as to scheduling of the beta release... Since the two blocker bugs are blocking the release process, I think it would not be wise to set any dates just yet. However, I think beta could be released shortly after they're resolved (or no longer considered blockers). Focusing beta on the Mac OS package would be wise, so we can maximize user testing, so I would also include its status in the schedule determination there.
Scheduling of release candidates for the final 1.0... June looks pretty unlikely given the work remaining to be done. I'm guessing a late summer release may be more likely, although difficult to predict.
Bryce