Hi Grzegorz,

Many thanks for your response : )

On 19 Aug 2008, at 12:54, Grzegorz Kossakowski wrote:

I am trying to think about this from a 'marketing' perspective.

It would be typical to assume (IMHO) that 3.0 is somehow better than 2.2 which is somehow better than 2.1, just because of the version numbers.

Whereas from the point of view of a User, making projects (using SiteMaps, XML, XSLT, JXTemplate, FlowScript, etc. etc.) 2.1 and 2.2 are as much as possible, completely compatible and mostly just as capable as each other.

The fact that once a User has a suitable build, it makes very little difference whether they use 2.1 or 2.2 (not sure about 3.0) is something that I think we should put across more clearly.

It would be a shame to loose potential Users, because they perceived that the version that used their preferred build-technology, was in some way obsolete (which could now happen with both 2.1 and 2.2).

Maybe a capability matrix of some sort, would help a User trying to decide which version to use, would provide more reassurance that the 3 versions (or at least 2.1 and 2.2) would provide a viable, stable, long-lasting platform, even though the version numbers may say otherwise.

The build and distribution system for 2.2 is clearly more modern and sophisticated. It has a polymorphic block paradigm that suits the build technology, it has the powerful concept of virtual pipelines etc. etc.

And this is all great !

But from the Users' PoV of making projects, I cannot imagine a project that could be made successfully with 2.2 that could not be made using 2.1 (don't know enough about 3.0).

My assumption is that you personally find 2.2 more powerful because you prefer the build technology, not because 2.2 is intrinsically more powerful, or less buggy.

This is why I propose that we should give a clear message that all release versions are valid choices, primarily dependant on the build- technology that you prefer, not on specific version numbers.

AFAIU, TomCat is in a similar situation, where the different primary versions, represent not quality, but the version of the ServletAPI and JSP Spec they support. see: http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html

I hope this is clearer

best regards

Jeremy