What's going on with the RC?

Whatever became of the release candidate?  For that matter, what ever became of Boonex?  They seemed to have stopped participating here.  On October 15 Boonex posted in their blog titled "When" the following statement:

1. We'll release one more beta shortly.

2. We'll release RC1 by the end of next week.

This is October 23rd.  Isn't the "end of next week" now?  - and I didn't miss another beta somehow, did I? - I still using D7B7.   I'm asking this in all seriousness, because I tend to look at things optimistically, and wonder if I am somehow misinterpreting these announcements.  I know I had planned to install "the next big thing" over the American Thanksgiving holiday almost a year ago (mid November) but even that was much later than I thought it would be.
Is there something everyone here knows about but me?  What is going on?

Rob

We wait. We wait for explanations and comments.
Each of us has planned terms, the budget, has made promises to partners.
But the management of participation does not accept. If there are reasons serious carrying over of terms we are ready to discuss them.

It seems that the recent outburst of tickets ruined their release schedule. That, coupled with the "security audit"....

I agree with others in that we all make plans, budgets, promises, etc., based on what we are told here, but as a relatively new member, I am learning to pay more attention to the Trac system than to blog posts.

My feeling is that they will still release Beta 8 to play it safe, even if they are RC-ready. Their entire team seems to be concentrating on fixing bugs and implementing enhancements, so I doubt they are testing for new bugs at the same time.

Of course, if the above trend continues, we will have a phenomenal, Fort Knox-secure and bug-free... Beta500! LOL

All in all, I just really hope their next release is rock-solid and secure; that should make up for the delays. If not....

I wouldn't call the number of tickets and "outburst" some of those errors were always there and never fixed, other errors are important to catch.  Its better to get these things in beta than the launch a live site.  The stuff with quotes and the database are a huge issue that I'm glad will be remedied in the next beta.

If anything I feel for the Boonex team. They are under huge pressure from developers to roll out a stable version because some of them have made empty promises to clients regarding when D7 will be available. If anything they should refrain from mentioning when a tentative release date will be unless they leave it open... something like,

We are going to try to release RC1 by the end of next week but we're working through 10 pages of trouble tickets and not exactly sure as to exactly when this will come out.

Fortunately I'm not that foolish to make statements to my clients that could or could not be true. I tell my clients about D7 but let them know that Boonex is working toward a stable version hopefully before the end of 2009. The most important thing is not to make any definitive statements like...we'll be ready to install your platform by the end of next week.

Keep up the good work Boonex and roll out the most powerfull software to date. When it's ready!!!

Best Regards,

Mario

@ marioantoci

Out of interest, are you part of the Boonex team? You make it sound as though you are but are not at the same time.

cbassthefish

Not at all. I run a free primitive skills site I started last December with 6.1.5. I'm also a web developer. I started toying with the idea of using boonex for business and it's a great product to offer clients. Boonex has been very nice to me and I can usually hash through most any discrepency I have. I'm not a script developer but I can edit stuff and move things around a bit, enough for my liking anyway. I love their products plain and simple.

Best Regards,

Mario

I think a big gripe about boonex is the lack of interactivity with the developers.  Its hard to call this a community where the people creating the underlying script don't engage in discussion about the product.  We tst and post issues and for the most part will either get a "ticket created..." or pure silence so we don't know if the issue is a bug, installation problem, gremlen, or something else.

Caltrade has a valid point about soem sort of discussion from boonex yet we've gone into another pure blackout phase from them; doesn't make much of a "community" atmosphere.

I'll agree that there is a lack of immediate interactivity to individual problems as they happen. But on the other side it seems to me that most of the issues are responded to in bulk or all at once. That leads me to believe that Boonex team members do in fact read through the forums but respond with action, regarding making script changes and such, instead of posting ..."yeah yeah we're working on it" every time the same question is asked.

There are ways of escilating problems and getting the right answers you just have to ask the right people. The way I look at it is that they are working as hard as they can to deal with what they already know about and will worry about what they are unaware of as soon as the first list is complete. It's really up to us to help support them and make the better anwsers available so we can all have awsome software for all of us to use as we wish.

Beta 8 will be released when these are closed. RC1 will come after that, hopefully,  and you can follow the roadmap to see how close it is to release here.

http://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&milestone=Dolphin+7.0+%28Hookie%29+Beta+8

Regards,

Mario

There seems to be a plethora of pro boonex newbies around at the moment...  

Yes Cbass - ones that talk with great authority about Boonex, almost as if they were part of that company's PR department.

Darn! I have been with Boonex 14 days less than you. To make things worse, my post count is insignificant. How idiotic of me to silently work on my site and open my mouth only now that the next major upgrade is about to be released.

Darn! darn! darn! I should have known it! I'm a selfish noob who instead of ranting and showing my respect to the wiser, and, above all, popular ranking members of the community I go and post some ridiculous empathy for the company developing my business' software framework....

Pure noobstupidity!

Well, at least I do not portray myself as Boonex staff!

I hear they have a plethora of secret fake accounts they use to spam the forums with positive things about themselves every now and then... You know, to keep visitors and potential new customers from finding out the Truth.

Someone has taken offence...
There are many errors, tickets. But there are also official statements about dates. Also there are no comments...

What is the difference between B8 & RC1?

The only difference I can see, given we should already have RC1 available for dowload & even by Andrew's own admission the current D7 B7 in more stable than D6, is the commitment from Boonex to supply an upgrade between beta releases.

The next release RC1 or B8, would see be a far greater response to testers & bug reports, if Boonex committed to supply upgrades there after regardless of what the next release is called.

There would be are lot more testing & reporting if they had the knowledge of knowing that they no longer have to destroy their work, only to have to rebuild it again, then destroy.

There's an idea for a GAME, Boonex D7 - Site Build & Destroy

MHO a few posts above:

"My feeling is that they will still release Beta 8 to play it safe, even if they are RC-ready.

[...]I am learning to pay more attention to the Trac system than to blog posts."

Mario's thoughts: "Beta 8 will be released when these are closed. RC1 will come after that, hopefully,  and you can follow the roadmap to see how close it is to release..."

Sammie's blog post about a year ago, but equally appropriate today:

"[...]stop posting about when 6.2 is coming, let boonex work in peace and get it right this time. they do not need the pressure from people who cant wait.  Boonex have learnt a lesson from setting a date with 6.1 and being 2 months behind, i am sure they wont repeat that mistake again."

C'mon guys, we all want the same thing: a great framework to empower our online businesses. Let us not loose focus. Dates mean nothing if the main goals are not attained. By looking at the ticket list and the issues reported by other members which are yet to be responded by Boonex devs, I sure do not want that RC....

Sure, it is not wise to announce dates without 100% certainty, but, have this is not at all an uncommon sin in these types of endeavors....

As for taking offense, tech66, well, brushing off fellow members as "newbies" who speak with "great authority" like Boonex PR reps is exactly to be taken how? Do you agree with those statements? How constructive are such statements to the discussion at hand? Or, you mean, "if you dissent with my opinion you are a worthless noob" so you should not take offense in the 1st place?

I was not asking about your feeling or what Mario said, or about Sammie in in her Blog post when we were all waiting for 6.2 that was to have all the fixes for 6.1

As you would know 6.2 never arrived even after being 4 months late.

You would also know that after that wait, 6.2 was changed to D7 & we have now been waiting for a year for D7 or 16 months if you put both together.

If you had taken the time to read my post rather than reply to it in the way that you have, you would see that I was asking about making an upgrade available regardless of whether the next release was Beta or RC.

That would make everyone life much easier for those who have been waiting over a year & build 7 beta sites only to have to tear them back down again.

You would also know that it common practice for software developers to provide upgrades between versions even in beta.

So that that we have worked out that you know a lot, you would also know that boonex will not provide upgrades between beta's & will start from RC1, that was the version we had been told that we would have last week.

You would also know that the reason tha  Boonex did not provide upgrades between beta versions was to save time & make for a faster RC release.

So now we are back at the start.

Given that we should already have RC1

There is now no real reason not to provide upgrades from the next release, regardless to whether it is called beta 8 or RC1

Yup, my feeling. People's opinions. Yours too. All worth the same.

But, hey, so it seems only a certain type of opinions are allowed, so, just ignore what you don't like.

As for other software platforms... I run a few other communities (phpFoX and Invision), and, man, we've waited our share for the new versions to come about. phpFox had recently announced V2 would finally see the light early november and... wham! they just pushed the date back to late december... IPB3 took a while....

But, hey, just an opinion....

You guys are funny,

Nice conspiracy theory on me being a pr agent. hahahaha... ROGLMAO. If being a member for a year is being a newb then so be it I could really care less what you think of me. I was mearly stating my feelings and if you read close I make no statements or suggestions of ultimate knowledge to what Boonex will do or plans to do. I only shared my opinion, my personal opinion as a user of boonex 6.1.4, 6.1.5, 6.1.6, and D7B7. And hell yes I'm Pro Boonex. They provide software that makes me serious money. Not only do I make money from the custimization of the software I also use it for my own personal sites...see my profile community PaleoTube. I would love to see an upgrade path for beta 8 but if the Boonex team feels they need to release another beta before RC1 then so be it. They have done right by me in all cases so I'll leave this one up to them. Also no where in any of the admin post do they definitively state that they promise to release anything on a certain date, they do mention it but it certainly wasn't a garuantee or a signed contract. If you were foolish enough to tell a client it would be ready on a certain date then thats your bad not Boonex. That's all I'm saying.

Mario

Look, he is doing it again!!

I added you to my friends list because you make me laugh. Only difference between you and me bro is that I get my issues resolved by going through the correct avenues. It seems as if you prefer to criticize and postulate falsehoods.

Best Regards,

Mario

Yeah, he is just a rude person cbass - we have seen jerks here before who come here and immediately start calling people names.  Saying members here are "foolish" for believing an unambiguous release schedule announcement is obnoxious at best.   When you think of it, he is insulting Boonex even more than he is us, so his suck up move wasn't very effective.

CALTRADE,

I have no need to suck up to Boonex. The reality is the software is awesome, and you agree, or you wouldn't want to test the beta's to utilize it for your own endevours. And because it's not ready exactly when a forum post says it might be ready you critize how they operate for whatever reason. Thats what I believe to be foolish. No one is forcing your hand to download and test every beta, I've only tested b6 and b7, why not just wait for the RC if it's so annoying? 

Mario

P.S. In my previous post I stated that I wasn't foolish and did not make any direct statements about any other member except for specifically you CALTRADE in the above post. 

Well Mario, you insulted people here who are FAR smarter than you, and FAR more experienced - tech66,  cbass, mauricecano, and handsconnect all expressed the opinion you mocked as being "foolish", and your post where you pretend to have insider knowledge of Boonex was just bizarre.  I don't have time for pissing contests with people like you, and would rather not read your insults anymore.

I made no such claims. If you interpreted them as such maybe you should pay more attention to exactly what is being said. As for insinuating that I feel tech66, cbass, & mauricecano are foolish people, it couldn't be farther from the truth. Mauricecano helped me out recently with an error I had in b7. I have agreed that it's frustrating to not have an upgrade path and that it limits the amount of good testers. Please tell me how I'm claiming to be smarter or more experienced than anyone eles? Does that make my opinion less valid? I use Boonex on multiple sites, I have customized script, skins, and modules, and I'm currently testing the beta version just as you are. I've most likely been using a computer as long as you have if not longer.

Mario

Ну вы еще подеритесь, горячие финские парни (с)

Russian folklore, is not translated  :)))

Babelfish:

"Ну вы еще подеритесь, горячие финские парни"

Translation

"Well you still fight, the hot Finnish fellows"

I do not get it. You are right, it does not translate :o)

The essence is simple - let's respect opinion each other.

We see a situation on a miscellaneous. Everyone has the different purposes and waitings.

P.s. My bad English will bring to me troubles ;)

Wise words, Master Po.

Doubt anyone one here is out to insult others. Just different takes on the same issue, that's all. I'm sure as soon as Boonex releases something out we'll all turn to more common grounds of agreement.

I do think there is some sort of conspiracy going on, however....

Have you analyzed their corporate logo? Seen their last video? Seen the references to Star Wars? The masks? You should play the video's sound track backwards...

Just wait for "Poseidon" to come out.... LOL

Cheer up!

I love a good conspiracy, lets add to it.  I hear all the main devs quit or moved on to other projects and they have no more contributors to do fixes, or only a minor few who can't handle the project any more.

I hate to say it, but Project mgmt 101......manage expectations.  It takes no more than 5 minutes to post an update.  that would just be the kind thing to do on their part.  we all want the RC1 to be stable and understand overflow of time issues.  <knock knock knock......any one home?>

Some person over there can put down the nerf ball for a minute and at least say, "hey we are working on it, no due date yet for reasons x and xo."  then the peoples would at least know they are recognized.  The "media blackouts" do nothing except whip people into a frenzy. 

I am not in a giant rush to get my hands on the RC, but it would be nice to be kept in the loop. 

Peace :)

I don't really see BoonEx office through my window, but I'm sure of that they are working, bearing our criticism, suggestions... and many times our lack of gratitude :-)

I must agree with talentpod1. While some might be more or less patient than others re the release of a stable version, I think you have nailed the one thing that is fueling these arguments: lack of communication.

As for MichaelSwiss' statement (BTW, I do thank you for responding to my repeated calls for privacy settings enhancements, I know I keep trowing rocks at your window on this matter), I disagree with the "lack of gratitude" suggestion.

We are all paying customers, so, we are the ones who get the "thanks for your business" note, not the other way around. The fact that we are still here, excited by their products, should suffice as a reflection of our satisfaction for the products and those behind them. On top of it, in different degrees, we are all active participants in the development of Boonex products not only by buying and using them, but also by reporting bugs, pointing errors, offering suggestions, etc.

While I am of the opinion that these guys truly want to deliver a great product and that schedules are sometimes missed due to a zillion variables, as well as the fact that everyone deserves a break and breathing room to operate, I also think that no customer is ungrateful for saying, "hey! you said this would be ready on x day and not only it has not happened, but you have not even considered telling me anything about it".

I could not imagine telling a client such a thing. I don't want to stretch the argument, but such a thing could indeed be interpreted as "lack of gratitude" toward the client.

In any case, there is one really valuable thing about this, and that is the fact that, for the good or the bad, Boonex has allowed these open discussion forums which serve as a wealth of information to them. Hopefully they will make better use of it day by day. There are so many talented customers here reporting bugs, fixes, etc... Boonex must be very grateful too.

 I have to disagree with this statement in a couple spots:

1.  We are all paying customers, so, we are the ones who get the "thanks for your business" note, not the other way around.

       There is a large number of people here who are NOT paying customers, utilizing the software for Free.  While one can argue that the PAYING customers have this right, not all do.  Beyond that, there is NOONE as of yet that has paid for D7.  Boonex isn't taking future orders, but they are permitting those who purchase the D6 Licensing to upgrade to D7 without additional costs.

2.   also think that no customer is ungrateful for saying, "hey! you said this would be ready on x day and not only it has not happened, but you have not even considered telling me anything about it".

I could not imagine telling a client such a thing. I don't want to stretch the argument, but such a thing could indeed be interpreted as "lack of gratitude" toward the client.

     Again note, there are NO paying customers as of yet for D7.  While we at TDZ's work towards development of our own products based upon D6 we do not inform clients of future release dates, rather we simply advise them of what has been developed and ruled stable and then release that item.  To say we're being ungrateful towards our clients would be an incorrect statement.  Though this does enable us to avoid any egg on our faces in relations to missed dates and there is no reliance or impression of reliance on Boonex to deliver a product and then our being in a jam because Boonex missed a date.  Instead, we only promise what we know WE can deliver and if there is a problem, we never blame it on a vendor as we choose to not disclose oure vendors.

**In the end, if you've advised your clients that D7 will be forthcoming and then given them any type of date then you've made a huge error in your business plan.  You have no concrete date as of yet for a stable version of D7, once it is released, you then need your own development time to learn the code and work it into what your client needs.  If the client is looking for a bare bones install then your in luck that you'll only have to deal with the bugs of D7 as they come up from your jumping the gun and installing it for them right out of the gate.  You know there will be bugs, it's a new piece of software.

As far as those like Caltrade go, he has serious developmental time to go from a D7 Base Install to what he produces.  I've seen his work and I promise you,  he hasn't accomplished what he has from just popping it up and running it fresh out of the box.  Instead, he needs time to study the code, discover any & all bugs, resolve issues and develop D7 to work towards the applications his business demands of it.  All of this takes time, his own Beta tests and a ton of error log reports to finally get it all polished and ready to go in what we would consider a stable environment. 

Word to the wise:  Quit promising your clients D7 when you have a stable D6 ready to go now.  Give them the one we know that works, take your time developing & debugging D7 to their needs and then offer them the updated system once you know it works perfectly.

I concur.

Mario

Of course, but you get my point.

An error to make such promises? No question. Not a good choice, on both sides, however.

As stated before, I'm one for patience and, frankly, I'm personally in no rush. But I can also see the frustration if enthusiastic drama-stopping deadlines are offered community-wide and then such deadlines are neither met nor followed-up with proper communication.

I don't like it when stating an opinion results in name-calling, and, of course, we are talking about a complex framework that even if perfect out of the box requires further work, but I also do not think it is fair to say that asking for answers is unfounded and much less ungrateful--whether or not the user who demands those answers is a paying member of this community.

I disagree

nn

Well, I might as well put my 2 cents worth in as well. Takes a deep breath.. Hopes he will not get slack...

I agree to the fact that we should be getting some communication as to where/why the delay is. As we are ALL awaiting for a stable release of D7, it seems that when Andrew release a "When?" blog giving us some dates as to when Beta 8 and RC was going to be released, I do not think they expected the vast amount of tickets that got created recently either.

When that statement came out, there were only like 5 tickets in Trac. But within 2 days of that posting, I saw it jump to 18 and has been steadily growing. That is a huge jump from 5. So here is what it boils down to:

We rant and rave about bugs and tickets not being created. We rant and rave when it takes time to fix issues. We rant and rave when deadlines are not met. We rant and rave when releases ARE made and that are not flawless. Is seems to be a no win situation. We demand to be told when a release is coming, we continue to create tickets, and then we get mad for not delivering. Maybe we should not be so demanding and wait for the release when it is ready.

TRUST ME, I want this version out as quickly (if not more) like all of you do. But lets just say they do put out a RC here soon. How many of you are going to bash it as soon as you see something may not be "exactly" right? I can only imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes. Wondering who is going to be the next person to throw the book at me. I am NOT defending Boonex, however I think more of us should put themselves in their shoes. While most (not all and not me) people who use this are NOT paying customers, yet expect the same outcome as one.

We all complain when things are not going right in the software, I know because I have been a member 729 days and have seen it. So why are we complaining while we wait for them to fix it? Do they not have enough developers to help them? Do we have some members who can help? This is a "Unity" right? Let us help you if that is what you need.

In the end, Boonex will never satisfy everyone. What they have built so far, show great potential. Yes, it needs some tweaks and we all know that. I'm sure our negativity is not helping them at all. Hell I would almost be afraid to login right now if I was a Boonex team member..hahaha

Oh yeah, For those of you who are building Dolphin sites for clients should NEVER be giving firm dates of when something is going to be available, especially when you have no control over it. That is just asking for trouble.

BOONEX, All we are asking is to give us an update. We want to know that our voices are being heard. If there are delays or complications, that's fine. We are all adults here and all you have to do is just tell us. I'm sure some people will get pissed off, but oh well, at least we will know the updates.

Before anyone asks, NO I do not do any PR work for Boonex haha. Just stating the facts.

I admit I do some ranting like everyone else and try to keep it to issues when critical code breaking bugs occurs (ala video issues) but I don't see this latest flareup as an issue of regular ranting.  To me, this latest flareup is the culmination of ignored bug reports, ignored input, and a wholesale blackout of any communication whatsoever from devs.  This treatment does seem that the boonex dev team holds us in disregard in terms of dolphin 7.

It is extremely discouraging when we put up sites, test them extensively, report our findings, and have them completely ignored or better yet, a ticket made and then promptly cloesd as "invalid".  When this happens people just sit and wonder if they have a problem installation or what happened.  The community treatment from the devs to customers (paid and free) doesn't bode well for an organization that is suppoesd to be creating community software. 

At the end of the day, I do not want them to rush to release or even another beta version.  As a paid user, however, I would really love to see some sort of communciation open up between devs adn everyone else to address some of these issues.  If we pile up 50 new tickets to add before beta 8, its great because that is 50 bugs fixed.  In beta 8 we can then test all the fixes and ensure everything works as planned for the RC.  Large number of bug tickets are a good thing.