5.0.3 release delayed
February 24th, 2007 by Richie
Team,
I am not yet satisfied with the testing and also with the email client in particular. There has to be more to it than what we have. That being the case, 28th Feb will be a farce.
The intent is to deliver the most stable product that we can and it seems to be still a fortnight or so away from us. The validation is yet to complete and we have close to 80 bugs as of now. I was actually hoping for close to 200 at the least but for some strange reason (or that the product has become sooooooo stable) that we are not able to see those counts up there. This leaves a window of doubt and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
I encourage all of you to BREAK the product as that is what is going to save time and money when WE go for deployment with the product. Do take out time for testing it intensively. I do not want to have the vtiger-5.0.3 release similar to the firefox-2.0.0.2 release wherein the quality of experience just seems to go further down the drain. It makes life more bitter ;-(
This no doubt pains me but then this has to be done. We have to keep chipping away all that is not Pieta.
We need to be the best ladies and gentlemen. There is no option here. Else we will keep getting into the vicious quality circle and there will be no end in sight. I, least of all, do not want to make you buy support for the bugs that we have in the product. I had rather, laugh my way to the bank when I see you actively and happily deployed and have you buying support for those JUST IN CASE situations….
I need help in fixing the bugs. Okay, if fixing is not that simple, just identify the bugs and let us know. We will take it up from there. But for the love of God, please provide proper version numbers, logs and the steps to reproduce the issues.
Requesting your understanding and help in this regard.
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Well… Let’s wait more!
Just wanted to say that I understand the importance of delivering a stable product and I agree with this principle, but this repetitive announcement of 5.0.3 getting released (since… September?)and finally delayed is really painful.. Especially when you have customers waiting for this to go forward; I will tell them that… in fact it’s preferable to not wait anymore, it will just be a good surprise when it comes out.
Also a little note on the “God” thing.. If I have to help vTiger in whatever way, it won’t be “for the love of God”..
I won’t hold forth on religion matters, but just believe these kind of comments should not get into blogs around an open source project.
I hope, not being rude to you with those comments; as usual, I like to say what I think.
Keep up the good work guys
Krem
I would then like to see some kind of patches available for some of the current issues within 5.0.2. For example the date issue where vtiger saves new entries one day ahead. This bug is really a pain….
If you want proper support with the bugs it would be helpful if there would be at least one source that shows some kind of coordinated list. I don’t care where and how, but at the moment I simply don’t’ want to spend 30 mins just to find out that somewhere is another patch to the latest svn that is maybe official or not and fixed or not.
The combination of chaos forum, svn and blog is simply not coordinated.
For example:
Bill Landreth just commented here on issues with the date and the same time there is is an issue with php5.2.0 in the forum because of problems with the date.php. People patching and doing whatever but there is not a single word from vtiger how vtiger will deal with it.
So people go on patching to make it work and then somehow a new release will come out and nobody will get an idea if the patch is included or not.
I cannot even tell anymore where are we at the moment.
On top of it there are lots of statements about the 5.03 release date.
I feel, like giving up. Most of the active people seem to have a local installation and can setup a new server at any time.
This is really nice, but the success of vtiger depends on installation currently in production and not on installation to play with on XAMPP or server2Go.
The project needs support from both sides, the development and the business side. For the business side there is nothing to do as long as there is no stable product. No way to think of ways to promote vtiger and to think of business models that would support vtiger as open source software, to strengthen its position in the CRM market.
I am not a developer, but someone who could easily get customer who would love to pay vtiger support fees.
But how can I justify it? At the moment there is no way to use version 4 (because version 5 already announced) and no way to use version 5 (because everyone can see that it does not work at all)
So spreading the word of vtiger is impossible at the moment.
And yes, it is very easy for me to write comments here, but you asked for comments and here is one and like I said, give me something to promote and I can bring you customers who want professional support and are willing to pay (you) for it.
And why there is no efforts to let people know in detail where you guys need some help.
So, make a list of things where you need support,I am sure there are many talented people out there who would love to support vtiger if there would be one voice in one place that makes a statement that includes a little bit more vison than we need more bug fixing.
So next time when you write in your blog about bug fixing, please put all the important links related to it at the end.
Where is the current svn?
Where is the current announcement regarding the release date?
What are the major problems at the moment and where do we stand with it at the moment.
To whom do I email for which kind of help that I can offer. If you do not make it then ask someone to help you with it.
So? how can I help?
Hi Holger,
I don’t have all of the answers, but some of this may be helpful.
Where is the current svn?
http://vtiger.fosslabs.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/browser
You may have to request a login from richie at vtiger.com
Where is the current announcement regarding the release date?
Nothing ‘official’ I completely understand people’s frustration with the moving target. I think Richie is doing his best to balance hitting release dates and making sure most if not all of the known bugs are addressed in 5.0.3. The vTiger team has had overwhelming comments about the next version being ultra stable. You can probably get an idea of where things are really at by looking at the road map.
http://vtiger.fosslabs.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/roadmap
As of this writing there are 116 active tickets and it shows 78% complete.
What are the major problems at the moment and where do we stand with it at the moment?
There are a lot of ‘major’ problems. And it would also depend on the scope in which you look at them. On a development / contribution side some may say code clean up? Others may point to UI usability and others may point at a needed feature. If you are looking at ‘major’ problems with this next release then the focus is on bug fixes.
You can also get an very real idea of the specific issues reported by looking at http://vtiger.fosslabs.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&milestone=5.0.3&order=priority
and focusing on the statuses of major, critical and blocker.
To whom do I email for which kind of help that I can offer? If you do not make it then ask someone to help you with it.
Richie is always good. When Gopal returns he is another great resource.
If you want to submit code look at snv, bug tracker or the mailing list. Heck even if you post it on forums someone will put it in the right place.
If you have helpful ideas or end up helping others with their questions, post a reply on forum or help build the Wiki. Help clean up bugs or help get clarification of what reported bugs actually mean. Test the newest builds at en.vtiger.com/wip.
Buying support always helps, too. It keeps the vTiger team running and gives them more resources.
Wow, there are sooooo many ways that you can help. Just posting in this blog is one way.
Thanks for being part of this community, look forward to seeing more of you.
Regards,
Well, let me tell you that I see a show stopper. and I´m not talking about a new feature or an enhancement.
PDF. That is. As it looks now there´s no way you can mail a (in example)quote it to a customer , and I´m not talking about the 2nd page But The main one.
There´s no chance you can send that to a customer, with totals not aligned, if the name of the product is long it takes a couple of rows were everybody(And I guess I´m right on this) use the Product Code or Part Nº on that column and the description or name on the second.
Theres´s no place to point the recipient contact of the quote, there´s no issued date.
As I see it the point of these tools are to send those docs to the customer if I have to redo them outside vtiger I´m facing the fact of telling users that they should use a lot of resources and systems to be able to use a CRM that is broughtto the company to simplify their work…
Belive me I´m sure you see the fixing of the Quotes and S.O. as an Enhancement or New Feature but it´s just that …Fixing….I swear I can wait for some of the features like a workflow or B.I. But PDF docs are part of the basics and They HAVE to be working.
Hope this helps.
I have to agree with Slipperyman. I have been struggling to get the pdf to work for a long time. It is the only thing that has stopped me from fully implementing VT in our little office. I think if we took a poll on who is using VT in a production environment to see how much time they spent on getting the pdf’s to work the time would be staggering. I can live with the gui not looking so pretty, I just need something that works. Sorry for the sour grapes.
Ok. Fair. We will have a look at it. Pl. confirm that you have had a look at the latest src code as well.
Richie, I wrote that five minutes after testing the version released to test and destroy as suggested, and to be fair I´ve just tested that feature because that´s the one holding me back.
I´ve introduced the Vtiger to the company management (I had to invent a nice PDF) and they´re happy and made a sales brainstorming announcing the introduction of the tool to the sales team..
But now I can´t put it in production cause I can´t deliver What I promised and belive me the PDF stuff was one of the eyes opener.
Said…
I also ran through the 5.03rc demo this am and can confirm that the pdf is amiss. The taxes not showing up are what are driving me crazy. Slipperyman and I cannot be the only ones affected. I surely appreciate all the hard work done by the team, don’t get me wrong. I am using what I can, and I have other solutions to work around VT not doing this. I just want to use one system instead of two or three.
It was a figure of speech Krem
Do not take it literally
Hello Slipperyman and Ed!
We WANT that you go for deployment with 5.0.3. So, please be assured that you are going to have this fixed in. Of-course, you are surely going to buy the 100-user support subscription, aren’t you ;-)?
Regardless, we will have a good look at the issue concerned. It will be nice if you could give us a sample of how you would visualize the output to be.
That will make life a lot easier please.
Hello Holger!
Do have a look at what Brian has suggested.
I am pained to hear the troubles that you have been put to.
The co-ordinated list is in the svn alone. All the forums/mailing-lists data are all sent to the svn. So svn is the place to have a look at.
“This is really nice, but the success of vtiger depends on installation currently in production and not on installation to play with on XAMPP or server2Go.” Exactly. That is the reason why we are putting in so much effort for 5.0.3 .
version 5 is not that bad as you are making it seem to be. In all fairness, the 5.0.2 was a not so stable release. But the 5.0.0 and 5.0.1 are.
Your offer to help is very much appreciated. The problem you are facing is because of a disconnect.
Let me explain.
Most of the guys around have been here for quite a while so they know the way in and out.
You have come in probably somewhere in between and hence are not able to follow the thread.
I would suggest that you have a look at the vtiger.com website esp. the community tab.
That will put you into the picture.
Holger, I need you and all the others too. I am not going to say that we screwed up. No, that will be too harsh on me and my team and the other folks who have put in their views and have seen it go to fruition.
What I would concede is that there is scope for improvement.
How do you think we should handle this case?
Hello richie,
I ‘d like to remind you the problem with the migration. 90% (http://forums.vtiger.com/viewtopic.php?t=8195&start=80) could not migrate from 4.2.3 to 5.0.x
I think that this is a major problem that you have to solve. Because, what if you get new users (or customers) and lose the old ones? What are we going to think about a later upgrade to v6. It ’s a long time from the release date of v5 and no solution is announced. And you have to keep in mind that not all users are familiar with php, MySQL, Apache etc. Did you make a CRM only for experts and power users? I also know some of them, that they are stacked with 4.2.3.
Thanks, Kostas
Richie, my point of view about the pdf docs is that there are still a lot of strings hardcoded like the columns name. I think you should keep the mandatory Amount fields and let the user select the others or one of the best solutions could be to use the merge function making available the fields and let the users create in ms word the template as needed and replace the values with tokens like the mail merge, allowing everybody create the docs according the company image and you are free of the complications of the pdf or mailing from the systems.
then if I want the columns colored like the rainbow is my choice.
Is it hard to achieve?
Just trying to help….
Hello,
I believe there is nothing much to do for now, all we can do is help vTiger to get 5.0.3 out by testing and fixing bugs…
THEN, there is a lot to discuss, this thread is just repeating what people already said in forum and dev mailing list.
There are many things to do, but the first prioritie is 5.0.3, let get to this point after what a big discussion between US (vTiger+communitie) should take place stating what are the priorities and the next moves.
Regards,
Clem
Problem in testing, is that a lot of us has been bitten on the migration path along 4.x to 5.0 RC to final.
If I take my example as a ‘use case’ I would like to test as some interesting bugs has been fixed since, and help you regress some bugs.
But I stay with my ’still usable and production’ 5.0 version until I saw a 5.0.3 final. Because even if I duplicate my setting, I’m not sure that we would have a clear 5.03RC2 -> 5.03 final path easy migration.
If starting from an RC release, you offer waranty that you won’t loose your tester along the way, you’ll have more happy testers, that like me don’t want to have two configurations, but could afford to upgrade and stay/correct/report bugs on actual systems, with real data and users while we help you qualify and regress the remainings.
If not, you’ll see people waiting a final and let you and your supporters with all the burden.
Hi Kostas!
Permit me to justify the http://forums.vtiger.com/viewtopic.php?t=8195&start=80 with 90% failures.
The fact of the matter is that though initially the script failed pretty bad, almost all the cases where fixed but unfortunately the poll was already cast and we did not edit the poll to reflect the final state.
So that is about the post in concern.
In general, yes, the process must have been pretty painful else we would not have such a high percentage of failures.
vtiger is not for the power users alone. It is for all users and I mean it. I expect even a kid to install the product and just click around.
Your point is taken though and we will consider this as a very very important piece in our puzzle.
Slipperman, point is taken. Mickie please respond.
Whisky, point taken.
Will do.
richie,
I think that Slipperyman’s last comment would work for me. I would also suggest a step in the quote, SO and Invoice modules to actually save all the amounts in a table. I mean, every so often I need to total all the taxes, labor, and products sold. I have noticed that in the quote table that there is a tax field for the actual tax amount. But there is never an entry. If I am not mistaken you must be creating the tax total for the PDF on the fly as it were with the java script. I think that is why the tax total isn’t sent over to the PDF. If I had only one module that needed to be absolutely fixed in this way it would be the invoice module. I hope any changes in one module could be easily applied to the other modules. And OF COURSE I’ll buy the 100 user support subscription!
Dear Kostas, whisky,
i can understand your situation. It will be painful if the migration fails.
As richie said, when we create that poll we had more issues in the script. Based on your (community) feedback we have fixed most of the issues.
Last week also we have removed the collation and ROW_FORMAT from the script which makes some problems. Some users faced this collation problem. when we look into that problem we found this issue and fixed it.
so based on your feedback we are fixing the issues.
Also for some users the migration stops in the middle because of the server memory limit. we have fixed this but some server will not allow to increase the memory limit.
Like this we are having some problems. i accept it. But in the meantime most of them send us the details and we have fixed their migration problems.
Please feel free to let us know if you have any problems in migration. Based on your feedback only we can fix the issues. Because testing the migration in all server setup is not possible for us.
Hope you understand.
Thanks & Regards
Mickie
You can have the most dynamic system in the world, but if you dont have the reporting module working then the system is useless - Totally Useless. The reporting module (and I am not referring to the Anylitcs Reports, I mean the INV Quote reports etc etc)is the MAIN link in the chain, as this is where the Result of all the input finally ends up.
To print Invoices, Quotes etc. etc, is all some kind of report and this should be a high priority -at all costs.
The fact that this problems still exists in 503 and that there is no solution in sight , is proof that the dynamics of having a good report module is not understood, as clearly, it has taken lesser priority to other less important issues.
Being unable to ouput correctly formatted quotes , invoices, etc etc is a definite a deal breaker which renders all the effected modules as incomplete.
just my 2cents worth
Hi Tony! Welcome around.
Do put the trac to good use please.
Kindly note that the 5.0.3 is going to be a bug-fix release only (ok,perhaps mostly