[META] What's a RC? was: [sldev] Roadmap: 1.19.0 Viewer

[Mike Monkowski]

Joshua Bell wrote:
> As might be inferred from the number, we are planning on making the 
> 1.19.0 Viewer update mandatory for residents at some point in the near 
> future – probably early February.
[...]
> We're still pulling together the release notes for 1.19.0, but the 
> high-level summary is:
> 
> * 61 bug fixes
> * "Voice 1.1"
> ** Introduces moderated to (formal) group voice and group text 
> conversations
> ** Moderation ability applies to group owner and group officer roles
> ** Moderation will NOT apply to one-to-one text or voice chat, ad-hoc 
> group conversation, or to spatial voice chat.
> * Auto-joining group chat sessions has been removed
> ** Group members must explicitly choose to actively "join" their SL 
> Group's chat sessions after they log in.
> ** Starting a new SL group chat only adds the requester to the chat 
> session much like an IRC channel.
> 
> Obviously, for the voice moderation and group chat improvements there 
> are server side components, so these features will not "light up" until 
> we've updated the servers, which is tentatively planned for next week.
[...]
> And while I'm here, here's what we're expecting in 1.18.6 RC4 (deltas 
> from RC3) - some of the changes failed QA so we'll need to iterate a bit:
> * Language names need to have a consistent format in preferences drop-down
> * QuickTime disabled message cannot be ignored
> * Linux client doesn't recognize that a viewer is already running
> * Display HTML error page in selected language when viewer is unable to 
> connect to second life URL
> * VWR-3667;About Land > Access: On group owned land, group owner gets 
> eject message when "Public Access" is unchecked
> * VWR-3829: Cursor in Logon edit boxes difficult to see
> * VWR-3501: Create/Edit Gesture window preview button blanks after pressing
> * VWR-4010: New search does not accept non ASCII characters
> * VWR-3539: Communicate window width will no longer resize smaller in 
> 1.18.5.3

OK, I don't get it.  RC4 will get some new features, but not everything 
in 1.19.0.  And 1.19.0 will go out before the servers can handle it. 
Yet 1.19.0 will quickly become mandatory.  Am I missing the purpose of 
the "Release Candidate" program?  Are some LL developers exempt from the 
RC track or something?  Does the release "roadmap" have "express 
bypasses" on it?

Mike