Release timing

[Shane H. W. Travis]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Gervase Markham wrote:

> What's so special about May and November which means we have to release
> then?

May and November are both months where people are at work, where there are
not a lot of other things going on to interfere with contributing, where it
is possible to schedule a 'big push to the finish' and be reasonably
confident that most of your key people will be around.

> Why not get straight into the 6-month system, and advertise January and
> July?

January and July are, by contrast, *bad* months to try do a final push; in
fact, January would be my 12th choice of months in which to try and do a
release, simply because the majority of people in the English-speaking world
will just have had Christmas holidays... making January a rotten time to do
a 'big push' on anything.

July would be right near the bottom too, just for the reason of summer
vacations. I'd rank it only slightly above August. Combine them, and they
fall to 6th place in a semi-yearly release schedule, from my perspective.

In reverse order, my personal list would be:

6th - Jan/July - reasons stated above
5th - Jun/Dec - mostly same reasons, not QUITE so bad, but if you slip over
	your schedule, you've got no workforce.
4th - Feb/Aug - mostly because of August
3rd - Mar/Sep - Sep is the psychological beginning of the year for people
	who have kids; new school year and all that. Again, much of your
        workforce will be here and there over the summer.
2nd - Apr/Oct - we don't deal with university contributors much (I don't
	think), but this would be bad for them...
1st - May/Nov - Everythig has past, nothing is imminent. Good time for a
	big push for closure.

Hey, you asked... ;)

Shane H.W. Travis       | The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing
travis at sedsystems.ca    |  because you can only do a little.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan |   Do what you can.  -- Sydney Smith