2003.04.07--Before we embark on any discussion of Helix 6 we must address the first question in everyone's mind:
Q. When will Helix 6.0 be released?
A: We don't know yet.
We're hoping to leave that answer in place until such time as we have a clearer picture of how long this is going to take. Part of it is work and part of it, as we never tire of telling you, is money.
Understanding what affects the answer is as simple as understanding the nature of progress itself.
On a trip, it's a pretty cut and dried thing, at least in terms of how far away the objective is. You're traveling from New York to California. Different routes will result in slightly different numbers of miles covered. Only weather conditions and funding can really affect the outcome.At any moment, if you can't say for sure when you'll get there, you at least know you're only 100 miles away.
With software it's a little more complex. Weather really doesn't factor into the equation, but money certainly does. More insidiously, there are the "intangibles."
For example, when you think you're an eighth of the way there, you discover something that can cut 60% off the whole trip, but it may require a bit of backpedaling. Similarly, even with the best planning, you could see yourself as nearly finished when--in spite of your best efforts to the contrary---you discover something you simply hadn't foreseen that will cost you an extra 60%?
So where are we right now? Based upon what we've set out to accomplish, we see ourselves as very much "on schedule," but there is still a very long road ahead of us, and plenty of uncertainty still clouds our efforts.
To help us cope with these uneasy seas, we adopted two operational and developmental principles.
1. Every project should bring the product closer to all stated goals.
The plan we've laid out covers the two immediate destinations we've all had in mind since this adventure began: getting to OS X (Helix 6, code named "Pele" in keeping with our ongoing volcanic theme) and getting to a "Macintosh-Linux-Windows" version of Helix (Helix 7, code named "K2"). The principle essentially says that whatever we do in the short term, we don't want to compromise the longer term. If we build something for Helix 6, it should not be, if at all possible, something we'll have to dismantle and replace later to get to Helix 7.
2. Getting to each place is not enough; we need to make it a better product
Ultimately, realistically, we can't make Helix 6.0 a feature release without adding a ton of time to the project. Everyone has to understand this. Should we find ways to improve the product within this context, we will make every effort to do so.
As we make progress, in addition to updating you on what we've accomplished, we'll begin to list the things that have been fixed and added to the Helix "canon."
For now, we'd like to direct your attention on the subject of Helix 6 to the Forums. There we solicit your feedback on a variety of subjects that are important to shaping our plans. As to specific things, like bugs and features, changes and improvements, there isn't much to tell right now other than that we've broken our list--which contains input from our bug and feature reports submitted on this web site (thank you all for your diligent input)--into three groups:
(a) Things that look easy.
(b) Things that look hard.
(c) Things about which we don't know "how hard," "how long" or "how much." [These are also known as things that have not yet been fully spec'd.]
Each group has things that are very important as well as things that could be jettisoned. There are many hard choices that we face and we have established these discussion areas so you can help us sort out the right choices to make. In the Forums, you'll be able to start giving us some meaningful feedback on some of them right now.
In upcoming Helix 6 status updates, especially once you've had a chance to use the Forums, we'll talk about these categories in some depth to help them evolve into specifications.