Release that rewrite on 11.11.11

Written by Barry Warsaw in technology on Mon 04 April 2011. Tags: floss, mailman, opensource, python,

I know that the Mailman 3 project is not alone in procrastinating getting out a release of its major rewrite. It's hard work to finish a rewrite on your own copious spare time. I was just chatting with Thomas Waldmann of the Moin project on IRC, and he lamented a similar story about the Moin 2 release. Then he said something that really made me sit up straight:

<ThomasWaldmann> 11.11.11 would be a great date for something :)

Yes, it would! We have the 2011 Google Summer of Code happening soon (students, you have until April 8th to submit your applications) so many free and open source software projects will get some great code coming soon. And November is far enough out that we can plan exactly what a "release" means. Here's what I propose:

Let's make November 11, 2011 the "Great FLOSS Release Day". If you're working on an open source project undergoing a major new version rewrite, plan on doing your release on 11.11.11. It can be a beta or final release, but get off your butts and make it happen! There's nothing like a good deadline to motivate me, so Mailman 3 will be there. Add a comment here if you want your project to be part of the event!