Opera about release channels and cycle
Yesterday must have been a busy day for Opera Software as the company received more than 1300 comments after pushing out the first public version of Opera 15. It is the first preview of Opera's future and it is only natural that existing Opera users looked closely at the product.
The majority of the 1300 or so comments that were left so far on the Opera Desktop Team blog paint a negative picture of Opera 15. Especially the lack of customization options and other missing features are mentioned over and over again in the comments.
The company published a follow up blog post that addresses concerns and an outlook of things to come.
The first thing of note is that Opera will add another release channel to the development process. Previously, only stable and Next versions of the browser were made available. The new release stream offers the following channels:
- Opera Stable - This channel has not changed.
- Opera Next - More of a beta release channel now instead of cutting edge.
- Opera Developer - Similar to Chrome Dev and Firefox Nightly offering the latest features first, but also less stable than the other two builds.
Opera has not yet decided on an update frequency for the channels but confirmed that it will be at a much faster pace than previously. It is however very likely that Developer channel builds will be updated more often than Next or Opera builds.
The article addressed some of the concerns that users expressed in the comments and emails that Opera received after releasing the first new version build. According to Adam Minchinton, some of the features that are missing in the build are already in the making but not enabled yet in the build because of stability issues. He mentions Opera Link, themes support, geolocation and a feature rich tab bar.
He also mentioned that Dragonfly is not dead, but did not go into any more detail. One possibility is the release of a standalone Dragonfly program much like the company did with Opera Mail.
It is good to know that Opera is not done yet working on browser even though I had hopes that the company would publish a list of planned features and features that won't make it into Opera 15.
Opera deserves the benefit of the doubt and new releases of Opera 15 will certainly show where the company is headed.
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@KK: A product is a product, free or not. While I might not have a say in it’s development as you correctly point out, that doesn’t mean that I must accept any BS from a developer, so I speak my mind about it wherever I can.
As for free software, I tend to believe that it will stay with us for quite a while :)
they are headed towards not being Opera anymore… that’s all.
Hard to find other browser of such quality… f*cking luck…
No, they don’t deserve anything. If they don’t provide a high quality product, the users wont use it.
“No, they don’t deserve anything. If they don’t provide a high quality product, the users wont use it.”
A “product” is something you pay for.
If you don’t pay for something, you have no say in it’s development.
Enjoy free software while you can.
It might all go away someday.
That free software also need you to generate revenue. I can only enjoy free software that benefit me, if they think they can do whatever they want and expect me (or most of their users) to be their lap dog then they’re sorely mistaken.
It might deserve the benefit of the doubt, but yesterday’s beta build left a lot to be desired. I’ll take another look when they release a version with Opera’s killer tab features.
I am surprised by the overwhelming response of lots of Opera users. Haha, the Opera managers now know what to do :)
At this moment of writing there are already 144 comments on the new article from Adam Minchinton. I will follow this with big attention the coming weeks.