Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: [PHP4BETA] PHP 4.0.0 Release packaged

At 23:57 19/05/2000 , Manuel Lemos wrote:
>Hello Andrei,
>
>On 19-May-00 13:24:02, you wrote:
>
> >> Does that mean that http://bugs.php.net/version4/bugs.php
> >> isn't uptodate? The page lists 488 open bugs.
>
> >No software release is bug-free, unfortunately. :)
>
>That's Microsoft's line of thinking.  However, Microsoft is money driven
>and their market can't wait.  What's the rush here with PHP 4?
>
>Last time I looked there were plenty of reproduceable bugs and if somebody
>reported them is because they are affecting at least who reported them.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's line of thinking isn't like that because it's 
money driven.  Not alone, anyway.

Not a single large-scale piece of software in the world, open or closed 
source, is bug free.  All software packages include both reproducible and 
non reproducible bugs.  I don't think that even the biggest Linux 
enthusiast would claim that any given Linux kernel in history was/is bug 
free.  Nonetheless, there have been at least a couple of hundred releases 
of Linux kernels, from which at least a few dozens were tagged 'Release'.

Finally, there's also something that people fail to understand is that PHP 
4.0.0 is being waited for by thousands, if not more, who are waiting to 
upgrade.  Some of them rely on their providers' web software, who refuse to 
install PHP 4.0 until it's tagged Release.  Others have a mythical belief 
that the word 'Release' next to a software version means it's bug-free.  It 
doesn't mean that, never.

We feel that the core of PHP 4.0 is stable, at least as stable as PHP 
3.0's, and there's no reason to delay the move to it.  We'll sort out bugs 
as quickly as we can, independently of the 'Release' tag.  After 4.0.0, 
there'll be 4.0.1, 4.0.2, and probably quite a few more revisions afterwards.

Zeev
--
Zeev Suraski   <[email protected]>  http://www.zend.com/