February 12, 2008
8.0.1 update
As I posted an evasive hint yesterday about when Notes/Domino 8.0.1 will be available, it struck me that it is a little odd to have to play the "ship date game" in public.Whether customer or partner, for sure if you were sitting in a meeting with me, or having a one-on-one conversation, I would simply say "we're shooting for eGA around the middle of next week". I might even give you the specific target date. Part of that is the trust aspect of a direct conversation -- I know who I told and when I told them, so therefore, I can always go back to those I talked to and update them if something changes. I can also explicitly ask someone not to share such information broadly, lest it set the wrong expectations for anyone not told directly. The same process certainly happens with my counterparts in product management, marketing, release management, and development -- everyone who knows the target date has certainly communicated it to someone else, somewhere along the way.
As prevalent and useful as blogging has become, there are still some topics I hesitate to address proactively. If a blogger gave a specific date for 8.0.1 in advance of any public announcement from IBM, it could be construed as the announcement, and potentially mis-set expectations. It can create dissatisfaction, where eager customers start looking for a download at 12:01 AM in their local timezone, when we're really hoping to post mid-afternoon in our own. And the last thing any of us would want to see is months of hard work undone by negative buzz related to a date slip of a day or two (which certainly has happened before).
Thus, unless the world continues to evolve, we'll have to stay a little bit vague until the official IBM announcement is unveiled. But if you contact me privately, you might get a better answer :-)
Location: Highland Park, IL USA
Thanks Ed. Just to have an idea is better than nothing.
I have to say this is one upgrade I'm looking forward to.
8-)
on 2/12/2008 10:29:20 AM -
It will keep me from chcking every couple of hours until next week somtime, this is a big release almost seems it should be 8.1 instead of 8.0.1
We don't need dates, what need need is an RSS feed from Passport Advantage?
With the blogs, it's more of an informal announcement that hints when it will be coming. I'd hope no one is out there taking this as 'the word' of when it will be released.
Either way, your little hint gave us some time frames and an expectation and hope that it's coming soon.
I like to see all the buzz that has been coming lately with the IBM products.
on 2/12/2008 11:15:27 AM -
@4 The Buzz is great. It is actually fun to be a Domino Admin again. All the new features are being well received, and People just can't wait until the next release for more features.
@3 An RSS feed from Passport Advantage would be great.
@Ed I agree that any non offical announcement of a release date needs to be taken as speculation, and not fact. The last thing we want to do is to tarnish all the good that IBM has been doing with the product by putting false release dates out and thus, false reports of missed ship dates. That will just add fuel to the already massive fire that is the "Microsoft V. Domino" battle.
Keep up the great work
on 2/12/2008 11:19:45 AM -
So Ed, this means that 8.01 will be available on the 14th at 2:30 PM Eastern time, right? :-)
@6 And that specific date has ruined "chances" for the partners of geeks globally ;)
on 2/12/2008 11:56:58 AM -
@7 That is too funny.. but being the geek I am.. well.. yeah "Sorry hunny!! i'm busy downloading my new mail server software, got to sleep"
on 2/12/2008 12:41:52 PM -
@8, What, you can't take 2 minutes out while it's downloading? ;)
on 2/12/2008 1:05:01 PM -
@9 No!! no time for that... gotta do notes!! oooohhh purdy!! .... besides what would I do with the extra minute and 30 seconds?
2 minutes??? My god... that long?
on 2/12/2008 3:02:30 PM -
nice title
i bet this gets a record Planet Lotus click through, that is right after people go to passport advantage and discover that it is not there yet ;)
Is it official, downloads start on Feb 14th at 14:30 EST?
Domino 8.0.1 will be very important, as the current Domino 8.0 doesn't even work on AIX 5L!
However, nothing much works on AIX anyway, so I guess I need to switch to openSUSE 10.3.
I'm not sure if IBM considers openSUSE as a supported OS, but they better do, as Linux should be an free OS always. Commercial Linuxes are not much better than Windows.
Eagerly waiting for the 8.0.1 release...Can't wait for 8.0.2..
Congrats to IBM Team in advance for the good work and the momentum.
on 2/12/2008 5:42:15 PM -
@13 Domino 8 works fine on AIX - we've had it running on that platform since the beta. What's the issue?
I think a *lot* of customers have been waiting for 8.0.1 so I am sure that the PA servers will be red hot when it does go gold...
@15 - It complains about some problems with the server ID, as I wrote earlier in my blog: { Link }
I asked about this from our Domino consulting company too, and they confirmed me it was a known bug in Domino 8.0.
@15 - It complains about some problems with the server ID, as I wrote earlier in my blog: { Link }
I asked about this from our Domino consultulting company too, and they confirmed me it was a known bug in Domino 8.0.
8.0.1 will be happily downloaded but, thanks to Lotusphere, I want 8.5. :-)
on 2/13/2008 1:55:50 AM -
I don't need shipping dates, I'll just have it when it's ready thanks.
From experience, I'd much rather have finished code than released code...we're all waiting so eagerly on 8.0.1 for a reason, right ;-)
on 2/13/2008 3:38:51 AM -
@19: Finished code?
8.0.1 fixes 1021 bugs
7.0.3 fixes 1440 bugs
6.5.6 fixes 1051 bugs
IBM will get *never* get finished code until they let the Germans do the testing. :)
@20 ... But will the customers ever get a release then?! ;-)
@19, 20 & 21 - There is no such thing as "finished code" unless you're using an abacus. Testing is a risk/reward slider, not a binary switch.
on 2/13/2008 6:07:56 AM -
@20 - I owned a VW and can comfortably state that German testing and build quality is fully over-rated, especially in Electronics or software. The mechanics were just fine, let down by lousy software in the ECU.
@22 - I'm not expecting perfect code, but IMHO some of these bugs should not have made it out of beta.
on 2/13/2008 1:14:03 PM -
@23 - You got that right. BMW makes some of the world's most brilliant engines and is constantly pushing the envelope, but just about every powerplant or auto/smg transmission they've made in the past 10 years has needed at least one software flash to operate 100% correctly.
@2 - 8.0.1 is more like 8.1 in my eyes, too. I'll be staying away from it until 8.0.1FP1, for that reason. But I'm *really* after 8.5. I hope Lotus Support is ready for when I get ahold of that thing. ;-)
If they release 8.0.1 on Valentines day... My wife will not be happy. :-)
on 2/13/2008 1:29:30 PM -
@25 That's why IBM created Download Director. Just set it and forget it. Oh wait...you want to play with the new toy too I bet...LOL
@20 & 22 - I have studied IT in Darmstadt, Germany. We had a crazy professor who insisted that Nassi-Schneiderman diagrams are the only allowed way to document software (indeed it's also the only "Software Documentation" called diagram in MS Visio Pro, but the Visio implementation sucks), and anyone who uses Flow-Charts to document software, will blatantly fail all exams. He was right. I've heard also Nathan criticise my programming, the lack of bug fixes and updates. I don't need to! For example I wrote RunAgent 1.0a in 1997 and it has no bugs, and it's been running approximately every 2 seconds on 20 business servers for 10 years without any problems. People who make buggy programs have not went through the german university discipline of IT study.
@27 - I'm glad to see you're back to making friends with your "I'm the only person who is right" mentality. Keep up the good work.
Can someone give Mika his pills again? :-D
on 2/13/2008 2:45:08 PM -
My first "Heelo World" program runs bug free to this day. I don't run it often but I'll bet it would be just fine running every two seconds on 20 servers...maybe even 21.
on 2/13/2008 2:46:51 PM -
"Hello World" that is ;-) Maybe I should go to the German University of English writing.
on 2/13/2008 2:49:43 PM -
@27 Pah! Thats nothing compared to what I did in 1986. (At the time I had no formal IT education at all!):
On my purty Commodore 64 I wrote
10 PRINT "Hello world "
20 GOTO 10
And it's been running ever since. Billions and billions of iteratons and not a single bug. Now THAT is something to tell the world.
Cheers /Patrix
on 2/13/2008 3:03:38 PM -
@32. You forgot to put in line comments in your code.
Comments are for wusses. This code is even better:
10 PRINT "Hello world"
20 GOTO 10;
That subtle difference makes, uh, all the difference
on 2/13/2008 3:20:02 PM -
@33: { Link } (Philington's Second Law)
@35: aye, Murphy's Law of computers! Can't believe I did that.
10 PRINT "Hello world";
20 GOTO 10
That's better... :)
on 2/14/2008 2:48:44 AM -
@27: I sense a lack of confidence in your naming convention - "RunAgent 1.0a". Personally I never use version numbers because my code is always perfect the first time around.
on 2/14/2008 5:13:54 AM -
@20
I totally agree. :-)
We startet testing 8.0 and ended up in more than 40 PMR's a crit sit manager and an angry management :-(
@ED
we should talk about QS negotiations between you and us ;-)
@38 wow. Perhaps worth a mail offline. Not the experience at some of our deployed references...
Brian Parker on 2/12/2008 9:59:18 AM -