Sitefinity 2011 Q1 postponed by one week

The first major release of Sitefinity, after the official 4.0 release, will be postponed by one week and will be released on April 13^th, as opposed to the initially planned April 6^th.

While, we are ready with all the features that we have planned for the Q1 release, due to issues discovered either through our internal testing or through the support, we really want to extend our code-freeze period by one week in order to deliver a stable release.

The Q1 release is a major milestone and we believe we have done tremendous improvements to the system. We have implemented Virtual Path Provider for all the pages and templates in Sitefinity, which means that you will be able to use server side code as in a standard ASP.NET application, as well as build Intra-Site modules.

In addition to this, we have redone the Telerik Open Access implementation, which results in the fact that starting with Q1 Sitefinity can be run natively on Microsoft Azure. In addition to this, performance improvements – especially related to Forms module, Publishing System (RSS) are visible by bare eye.

We’ve also been carefully listening to your feedback, so the much requested features from Sitefinity 3.7, Shared Content and Lists module, made it also into this release.

So, as you can see, new features – together with several extremely important performance improvements and numerous bug fixes, is what makes Q1 release pivotal. Having all that in mind, we do not want to undermine the tremendous effort that went into this release, with trivial bugs that happen when the code-freeze period is not long enough.

Therefore, while we do understand that many of you have projects waiting for the Q1 release, it is our strong belief that one week later, but more stable release, will in the end be better for all involved.

At least there are no big surprises like delivering early or on time for a change...

Can't wait to see a detailed list of bugs fixed and improvements that actually made it into this release! I'm praying that there's some sort of ability to uninstall a custom module so I can finally complete a project that's going to be close to 4 months late due to this issue.

Phill

Thanks for the update. Keeps me from feverishly checking every twenty minutes for a release all week long.

Will there be another internal release, one with most of the functionality of Q1 (e.g. membership/role provider wrapper)?

What about features like WebEditors, Profile Properties, or Event Calendars?

Here's what I don't understand. You know that Sitefinity 4 is missing A LOT of features that 3.7 has. You delivered it before it was ready because it was already late. And then you make it so that nobody can purchase a Sitefinity 3.7 license and is practically forced into using Sitefinity 4...

At least let people use and purchase Sitefinity 3 licenses... at the Sitefinity 3 cost. Until Sitefinity is actually ready for FULL production use.

@Conrad
  I would have traded up Lists Module for WebEditors (but thats from a dev point of view :)  I certainly have need for both..

Hey all,

If you haven't already, be sure to engage with PITS and make sure your stories are well represented.

The team has a lot on their plate and prioritizing is a constant challenge.  Issues that 1) exist in the system, 2) are referenced frequently by customers and 3) see high votes or comments in PITS are bound to get addressed more quickly.

Beyond that, we're growing like crazy too meet all these demands.  It's only a matter of time until we address these challenges.

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

I like the sound of intra site modules...

Gabe I miss your webinars...maybe you should have a intra-site module webinar setup upon release of Q1 release?  :)

Yea - I completely agree. WebEditors are huge for both development and content management from an end-user perspective.

Once WebEditors and Profile Properties are added into the system, I'll start putting my clients on Sitefinity 4. Right now we have about 4 license purchases a month and have to keep putting them on Sitefinity 3 instead. Sad.

Oh and Telerik - Please give us the option to Self-Install Sitefinity like we could in 3.x. The Project Manager is not fun to deal with.

Perhaps this has been addressed, but how come the 2011 Q1 release is coming AFTER the 2011 Q1 SP1. Also shouldn't it be Q2...I understand telerik uses a divider of 3 instead of 4 when it calculates 1/4 of something...but now it associates the release with the end of the third of the year? This is all real confusing and what concernes me is if the obvious is confusing what else am I not seeing that's reworded to sound better than it is.

I seriously think a two release per year is a more realistic approach at this point. 

Well while SP1 arrived technically IN the first Quarter of the year, the initial release wasn't marked as Q1 2011, so it was really just the first service pack after release.  I also think Q1 2011 release is the first time they're officially using the release naming the rest of the telerik products use.

The service pack was released as Sitefinity 4.0 Q1 SP1. Anyways, not a big deal at all, I just thought it was confusing. 

Steve is correct, this upcoming Q1 release is the first Sitefinity release on the traditional Telerik release schedule (3 releases per year, with service packs in between).  

We called the previous service pack Sitefinity 4.0 SP1.  There was no mention of Q1 (to my knowledge).

As a result, the next several releases you'll see will be:

- Sitefinity 2011 Q1 - the release described in this forum post
- Sitefinity 2011 Q1 SP1
- Sitefinity 2011 Q2
- Sitefinity 2011 Q2 SP1
- Etc, etc.

We're still debating whether we will eventually phase out the version numbers (4.0, 4.1, 4.2, etc).  In the short-term, I suspect we'll be calling this upcoming release Sitefinity 4.1 (Q1).

This is a bit confusing, but almost anything we do is going to be a tad confusing.  I'm not sure if this post will help shed light on this or not.  ;)

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

Gabe,

The second sticky posting in the General Discussion session is titled 'Sitefinity 4.0 Q1 SP1 Released'

http://www.sitefinity.com/devnet/forums/sitefinity-4-x/general-discussions/sitefinity-4-0-q1-sp1-released.aspx

As I said, not of the utmost importance, but felt I had to reply to show where I was getting the original Q1 infomrmation from.

John

Touché.  :)

Sorry John, I completely overlooked that.  You're correct, this is confusing.

Hopefully my proceeding forum post provided some clarification.

Thanks for spotting this John.

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

@gabe

This is somewhat a sad story to me. Until last week I was writing over and over again that it was not possible to enter any bug or feature requests into PITS. Moreover off all the bugs, feature request and suggestions only about 20 showed up on PITS.

www.marktold.com/screencast/pits.swf

And now you ask us to use PITS. This feels like a wet towel in the face!

So I like to put it the other way around: Please Telerik finally put all the suggestion requests, open bugs and missing features from 3,7 finally on pITS so we are able to vote as per your request.

Postponed release
Just to let you know how this makes me feel. I have postponed a project with a important client because 4.0 was not close to beeing ready for a customer project. So in January I told the client that we would start in the first week of April. Now I have to go back to the client and tell him we have to wait another week.

I try to simply deliver what I promise but at the moment this is not possible.

I sure hope that at least what Telerik promised for Q1 will actually be delivered! No - unfortunately this and that did not make it to the Q1 but we are PLANNING it for Q2.

I sure hope Telerik will get back to delivering more then we expect - at the moment I usually simply hope that Telerik delivers what they promise.

Sorry Markus

Is there as list of fixes somewhere for Q1? I was told the viewstate problem would be fixed but I don't see that noted anywhere. Does anyone know if that isssue has been resolved?

Thanks.

Hello,

Further to the announced features, there are couple more coming:

- Asp.Net membership providers wrappers;
- Profile and Profile fields support;
- Multiple urls for Content and Pages;
- Much better content caching mechanism for faster application responses.

WebEditors are dropped at this point - now we are using different approach for this task. Please check this blog post- http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/slavoingilizov/posts/11-02-11/creating_a_thumbnail_selector_for_news_items.aspx

Semantics :). By "Webeditors" we mean decorating a property with an attribute and getting a zero-code (on our end) selector...the implementation on the selector in that blog post shows us what can be done, but if far from 3.7 webeditor ease...

You deliver much less than promised – therefore please give money back to your customers!!!

Sitefinity promised the new release 4 last year but delivered delayed on January 14th 2011.  – Sitefinity forced us to a new, higher price – but Sitefinity delivered a not working system. Sitefinity was always  promising and promising but until now Sitefinity only gave us excuses and delays. Q1 hopefully comes now in Q2 ;-((( what a shame.

Many developers like me a highly unsatisfied and frustrated about this software status and not carried out anouncements  by Sitefinity AND loose and  lost a lot of money because of postponed customer projects until now. All that because they and me trusted in Sitefinity. – So the minimum for Sitefinity would be to accept compensation like a prolongation of all active running Sitefinity 4.0 licenses for at least 3 months!!!!

Regards, Robert

In regards to 'PITS'

Nice feature but it would be even greater feature if we could use it. Sitefinity licenses are managed through company account not a personal account. For large companies this also means any bugs would have to be passed on to the (usually non tech) managers who control the licenses instead of the actual developers.

Me, I recently left my prev company where I handled all things Telerik and doing some dev work on my own now. Nicely waiting with buying v4 licenses until the last moment.

So where do you want me to send them now?

@Jochem

You can click "Manage" on the licenses and assign more devs so you can submit tickets directly on your account.

The problem with PITS that makes it useless as a way to voice your opinion or to ensure bugs are being addressed is that you submit a ticket but it's up to Telerik's discretion as to whether or not it actually gets added to PITS. So if Telerik doesn't feel it's important you may never see it there or as is often the case, what I consider a bug, Telerik think's is desired behavior. So in the end how can I possibly get my issues addressed, luck?

Phill

PITS always has been a bit of a joke really...I have had many Issues (and feature requests) submitted, acknowledged, and fixed without even entering PITS.  It's more of a WWWYTSITS (what we want you to see issue tracking system)...or SGHTTETIOHLBTS (Some guy had time to enter this issue on his lunch break tracking system)

It should work like this: https://www.dropbox.com/votebox
Anyone can submit anything they want, and we get X votes every X period to move them up or down the priority list.
Or at least somehow link it up to their TFS...so its not a double-entry system.


To the SF teams credit though I don't know how much say they have in what shows up there (the problem exists for just about every telerik product).

@Steve

I know, we used to do that our prev company.
But since I'm starting fresh I have no licenses to assign (I'm holding out on buying SF4 until we're ready to deploy).

Hello,

I see your point about PITS, and agree that it can be much more helpful as a resource. That's why we are going to change it, and also change the process we have for the PITS issues. The end result should be - increased number of issues visible in PITS, and eventually putting all of the submitted bugs and feature requests there. Hopefully we will be able to do this in September, and our goal is to be completely transparent by the end of the year.

Perhaps this doesn't help you much at the moment, but I just wanted to share that we are thinking on all fronts so that you can get as much possible from every available resource.

Will the bug you introduced with SP1 regarding the layouttemplatepath not working with any controls as outlined in this post be fixed in this q1 release?

www.sitefinity.com/.../sp-1-newsview-layouttemplatepath-not-loading-template.aspx

Hello Michael,

Yes, this bug will be fixed with the 4.1 (Q1) release.

Telerik made the reply, on the link below: 

www.sitefinity.com/.../admin-session-timeouts-frequently.aspx

"We've removed DiscountASP.net from our hosting partners listings. We are aiming to return them with the Q1 release."

Is this still in the pipeline to remedy the issue outlined in that thread (the application pool using too much memory) in the Q1 release?

Blonde question probably but 4.0 2011 Q1 is now called v4.1? 

I probably missed an announcement, but since you're obvious having trouble numbering your new versions why not just "platform.age.fixcounter" as in 4.1.1.

We're on v4 now, it's 2011 so name that .1 (as you did) and use the third number for the progression instead of splitting it up in Q's and SP's. The next release after april, wether it's an SP or a Q release will be 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 will be the one after.

Or if that's to complicated, stick with the build numbers, platform.qrelease.build. For instance we have 4.0.1068 and 4.0.1210 and wednesday release will be 4.1.xxxx

Downside of the latter suggestion is either you're moving us to v5 next year or you're numbering doesn't match the Q-numbers no more.

--

From a developers standpoint I'd love to see the 1068/1210 build numbers in there somewhere. Those are the numbers I see in my code and the projectmanager and I know for sure that 6 months from now I'll totally don't remember version 4.0.1210 is the v4.0 SP1 released in Q1 but secretly being Q0.

J.

@Gabe
Hey Gabe, sorry I'm having a typical monday with an SF project, was taking it out on the new introduced version naming scheme :)

To be honest, I'm very comfortable with the RadControls and prev Sitefinity naming/numbering convention. It's probl due to this project which on paper started end of february and should be finished end of the month, but we're 6 weeks in and already have 3 versions of Sitefinity which doesn't make it more clear.

As a former and current 'customer' I'd expect something I can understand and I don't care what the competition uses for any convention- I choose Telerik not Umbraco or emagiC. I applaud the fact that we're receiving intermediate bugfix releases and we don't have to wait for a Q release to see things getting fixed.

So apology for being cranky and if you ever start the internal debate again, you have my vote on assembly.year.quarter.buildnumber :)

Jochem

Hi Telerik,

Will this still be released as stated above today the 13th of April?

Regards,
Jean Erasmus

*Is excited* and waiting...

Anxiously waiting....will it happen today?

Anybody there? Who can answer? When it gonna happen?

Remember, 23:59 (11:59 PM) tonight still qualifies as the 13th :-)

...and 11:59 PM Bulgarian time!

@Steve

Bulgaria is GMT+2 so it's 4:30pm there already... I guess we should count on a 13th of April US end of workday release...

How about 23.59 in Hawaii since Telerik has offices in the US

So if you are in Australia it could well be that tomorrow is still today :-)

And don't forget Tomorrow - Today will be Yesterday.

Looking forward to great things to come from SF and Telerik

Greetings from Switzerland 4:18 pm local time

Markus

Are we going to see anything today before the sun goes down here on the east coast?

@Embrace

Nope. The new release date is tomorrow april 14th I've been told earlier...

Why is Telerik so bad at managing expectations? First announce one date, then change it and promise another, then not appear at all because you can't meet the delayed date you promised earlier.

Hi all, We cannot rely on Sitefinity Management. Mother Telerik is excellent in components, but business unit Sitefinity cannot hold that Standard. As I wrote some werks ago: "You deliver much less than promised – therefore please give money back to your customers!!! Sitefinity promised the new release 4 last year but delivered delayed on January 14th 2011.  – Sitefinity forced us to a new, higher price – but Sitefinity delivered a not working system. Sitefinity was always  promising and promising but until now Sitefinity only gave us excuses and delays. Q1 hopefully comes now in Q2 ;-((( what a shame. Many developers like me a highly unsatisfied and frustrated about this software status and not carried out anouncements  by Sitefinity AND loose and  lost a lot of money because of postponed customer projects until now. All that because they and me trusted in Sitefinity. – So the minimum for Sitefinity would be to accept compensation like a prolongation of all active running Sitefinity 4.0 licenses for at least 3 months!!!!" Regstes, Robert

C'mon guys - the silence is even worse than not delivering when you promised.  My clients would tear a strip off me if I treated them like this.   If you're late, you're late.  But TELL us.  Communication! 

Yeah I know, multiple posts over the last few days saying Wednesday.  Wasn't written in STONE, but was implied that today was Go-Live.  Still 2 hours to go here, so the lack of posting about it still has me hopeful anyway....

@HRC my customer has already teared several strips from me :-) for being late, as I make commitments based on telerik's promises. Luckely this time around I promissed end of May, seems like it was a good move.....

Midday the 14th in South Africa, and still no word weather we will receive anything this week.

@Jean. Impatiently waiting too! From Cape Town. Would like to hear your experience so far. We are battling!

@Reg, we are up in Johannesburg. Version 4.0 has been very painfull indeed. We have written various custom modules in 3.7, and was fairly uncomplicated and quick, we perfected our VS.NET templates so that we had it down to hours for an uncomplicated module and 2-3 days for more complicated modules. We tried converting one of our simple modules to 4.0, took us days to get it coded and then days to get I to work. I can't see how the statement is made that it was written with developers in mind if it takes that long. I have not yet complained about the pricing, but it is getting to me now that we have to pay $8000 for less functionality, more development pain, and bugs galore. 

Posted on twitter 19 hours ago... 

I'm concerned about the twitter post by Gabe. If they are still coding this late it means little time for testing, which means we will get more bugs than fixes in this release again!

on Facebook :

We will have an official statement soon guys!

Does this mean another delay? Can they not release a internal build so we can move on?

Oh dear, here it comes, me going back to my customer with egg on my face. Indeed they don't deliver more than expected, they just don't deliver at all. Time to start searching for alternatives, maybe  I should look at dotnetnuke again.

@Jean, John, Reg

I am waiting like you since January 14th so I am willing to wait another day or two. And yes I an not happy about it either. But from some of my own experiances sometimes if something hast to go wrong it will go wrong.

I once had such a case where I suddenly heard a voice from chaos, telling me to smile and be happy it could be worse. I did smile and was happy and it came worse :-)

Markus

@Markus, I have been in the software industry for a very long time, and in my experience is that if you have not finished at least a week before intended release, and by finish I mean unit and integration testing complete, things will go wrong. By Sitefinity trying to fix things last minute it means they are clearly not ready. They should have instead created the correct expectation last week already that they were not going to be ready by 13th, and either descoped some of the work, or a new release date should have been communicated.

April 13th must be the Bulgarian equivalent of April 1st because they sure fooled all of us.

I would just like to hear something one way or the other...drafting an "Official Statement" usually means bad news as they're trying to word it so it doesn't cause another flame war :)

Hi Guys

I have two SiteFinity 3.7 licenses that i want to get rig off. i am sure they must be worth gold by now :)

Asking price $1000 each.

Cheers

@Reg, LOL, I have a SF 4.0 license paid $8000, not worth anything :-)

@Reg, @Jean

I once heard a story where a guy was trading in a pencil for something, then he traded that for something else and so on until he had a house.

So Jean a SF 4.0 License worth 8000 USD is a good starting point. Maybe you want to exchange your 4.0 for two 3.7 from Reg.

When I play Monopoly with my children we sometimes just shuffel the properties and give them out. After that the trading begins. Maybe you find each other :-)

If you have your house please invite me for the opening party - since I was the one given the tip :-)

Hang on guys. There is one thing I learnd in my military service. No mather how tired, how cold, how stressed you are in a night exercise - after 8 hours the sun will come up no mather what.

So be a man about it and hang on - even if its for another week.

Markus

Sitefinity should read this article.....

10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation

@Markus,

I hear what you are saying, and I've always been a staunch supporter of Telerik overall, and refrain from negative comments because things happen.  Unfortunately, the problem at this moment IS the lack of communication.  When people ask "What's the status", what am I supposed to say?  "Uh... Telerik will have an official statement soon."?

I'm with you and can hang on, but someone at Telerik needs to step up and smack some Sitefinity people on the back of the head (Jethro Gibbs style!), and tell us what the heck is going on, and we deserve more than a generic "umm, they are still working on some stuff.".

Here's to hoping...

Greg

JUST heard on the WebUI webinar....postponed until the END of next week due to a breaking bug

@Steve, now that's what I call living up to expectations! I am not disappointed because I've long given up on Telerik delivering Sitefinity on-time and without bugs. I am, like many others disappointed that they still can't "man up" and communicate to their paying customers that something has gone wrong. If this is a show stopping/breaking bug there's no way it showed up at the last second, they had to have known about this earlier. However they choose to keep us all in the dark and hope that they got lucky and could stick to their release date. 

I'm a developer, but don't ever claim to be top notch, yet I know enough to estimate a time frame and double it for unknowns and more importantly I know that communication with my clients is the most important part of business.

Maybe they'll learn, maybe...

Hi guys, is the day after and still haven't received a word.
Telerik, PLEASE tell us if the Q1 release is finished and we are just waiting for the publishing and polishing of the articles and blog posts and so, or it was DELAYED again.
It's disrecpectful and a ver bad practice to promise a delivery date and not even letting your customers know what is happening.
Thanks,
Andrés.

@Steve,

Wow!!  that it's delayed (though not exactly surprised), but the real WOW is that it's third hand through a Webinar not even related to Sitefinity.

Information...  that's all I ask.

Greg

You can findout a lot of things by keeping your ear to the team pulse of telerik ;)

Example

Hey everyone,

First I want to apologize for our silence.  We genuinely thought the release was imminent.  Rather than post a trickle of “not here yet” messages, we decided to post when the release was available.

This is not that post though, otherwise I wouldn’t be involved:  :)

Drafting an "Official Statement" usually means bad news as they're trying to word it so it doesn't cause another flame war

I guess I’m drafting the official statement and I have some bad news.  Nor do I have high hopes of avoiding a flame war, but I am hoping to offer an explanation of what is happening.  

Let’s start with the obvious:

What is the status of Sitefinity 4.1 release?

Here is the message I have from the team:

We discovered a last minute problem related to memory leaks and we are working on a fix.   Last night was spent working on a solution and hoping for a quick resolution. Our expectation was to release early in the morning today. Thus, the lack of official announcement.  However, the issue appeared to be more complicated than we expected. In order to resolve this problem and deliver a stable product, the release of Sitefinity 4.1 has been postponed for next week.

Long-story short, there were some memory issues discovered and the release has been rescheduled for next week.   We’re being intentionally non-specific about the week-long release window.  Obviously we don’t want to delay a 3rd time.  

But this doesn’t really address the frustration in this thread…

Why does this keep happening?

As someone who is responsible for creating enthusiasm around each release, I can fully relate to everyone’s frustration.   This is a good release ~~ and the team packed an amazing amount into it.  However, I’m now going into next week’s webinar with negativity about this release.  It’s unfortunate.

In a nutshell, these delays are simply a case of us biting off more than we can chew.   We see a lot of issues and requests submitted on a daily basis and we’re trying very hard to pack as many solutions as possible into each release.  This pressure causes us to fill our plate very full.    Sometimes too full…

This isn’t an excuse, this is an explanation.   

What are we doing to fix this?

I’m going to postpone my answer to this.  Everyone is anxious for an update and I want to get this posted.  The Sitefinity team is working around the clock (they still have a lot work ahead of them) and it’s not useful for me to start asking lots of questions in the midst of this.

However, there is already a lot that we are doing to improve:

-  Growing the team
-  Adhering to a regular release schedule – this 4.1 release is the beginning of this, although we’re now off to a rough start.  However, we will get into a regular release rhythm and be better for it.

In addition, some of this will simply settle with time.   I have a lot more to say on this topic, but I’m not going to do it right now.  I’ll revisit this after my Sitefinity 4.1 webinar.

--

For now I’ll only say “I’m sorry”, this is not okay from our perspective.  This is something we need to fix (and will fix).  

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

Thanks for stepping up and letting us know what's happening.
We do understand the problems the team are facing, and of course we would like not to suffer from them, but if we have to at least we need to be informed.
I guess we all would like to see a post like this yesterday, and I'm sure people would be worried but not angry.
Having said that, please take into the consideration the potential help you could receive from a larger group of people testing and possible fixing bugs in Sitefinity, and I'm talking about this community.
here we have a lot of talented and expert people that hapily would participate in beta programs of big releases like this one, and I'm sure a few of them would also find complex bugs (like the memory leak you mentioned) and even suggest a fix.
We are using the same tools your team is using for that (memory dump, leak memory analisys, etc), is not black magic.

Thanks again,
Andrés.

One more though on the Q1 release...  could you guys provide an internal build? Of course knowing it has memory leak problems we don't plan to use it in production, but there are some very important changes in the architecture of the product that we would like to test earlier than next week. Next week is our GO-LIVE date and we currently have some problems related to the shortcomings of the 4.0 version, so we implemented some nasty hacks we would like to eliminate very fast (for example the virtual path provider implementing the full page life cycle).

Could you guys help us a little? Please?  We need to confirm our hacks aren't needed in the 4.1 version, so we can decide to hold on on those features or we need to implement them as hacks indeed.

Thanks in advance,
Andrés.

I couldn't add anything else to @Andres statement. This does put me behind quite a bit and I am going to have to figure out a way to push through. I agree that there is a lot of talent in this community and we are not just end users. We push this product to it's limits every day. I work with Sitefinity an average of 60 hours a week. I know when there is a problem and will seek out a solution before posting here. Just to reiterate what has been said before... Comunication is key... I could have prepared my clients. Now I have to go to them and beg forgiveness because all indications were we would have a fix today.

Thanks Guys, you do a lot of good work, just keep us up to date. 

Also, I would be down for a beta test of new releases.

yes, please release a internal build.

Internal build would be EXTREMELY helpful.  Thanks for letting us know what was up.

If we are taking votes, yes, please release an internal build.  I can deal with a memory leak in development, but like Andres I have hacks to deal with the Viewstate issues in 4.0.  I would like to remove them, or at least confirm I can remove them.

I'm not at a point of production, but the hacks we have in place add up to allot of development hoops we have to jump through that I would like to eliminate.

Thanks, Greg

(EDIT):  However, Phil makes a very good point, though my understanding was that there is a group that handles deployment, and those that develop.  Under proper Source Control policies, the deployment team should be able to produce an internal build.  (If that's not the case, then Phil's statement carries much more weight).

In my original message I had a paragraph typed about an internal build being available, however the team simply wasn't able to get it posted.  It's almost 9pm there and they are exhausted.  Georgi expressed that we would try to get something posted tomorrow, but we'll see.

I wish I had it immediately available.  It was a conversation we had, but they're running on fumes right now.

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

Phil,

I do understand that there is no guarantee that the same things wont break again, but I am in the same boat as all the other looking for an internal build. At least I would know if I will be able to eliminate my hacks, I would better know where to put my efforts in anticipation of the official release. 

Gabe,

I totally understand they are gassed. I am in the same time zone as you and I have had 4 hours sleep since Tuesday 7:00 am. After a while you start chasing your tail.

Thanks for the update!
I'm voting for a better, more usable version then giving priority to a deadline.

Keep up the good work!

@Gabe, Unfortuantly my clients are not as forgiving as your clients, hence I'm going to be hanged for this. I'm also sorry, but this is the last time I'm putting my reputation at risk by utilizing your company's product and promises. Like I said in a previous post, at least a week before a ,release everything should be finalized and tested, that's how we run our shop and avoid this situations. May I offer some advice on how to tackle the problems Sitefinity is facing right now, instead of trying to cram everything into a release, why not opt for smaller more frequent releases. I know I wouldn't mind upgrading every two weeks. Maybe do functionality releases every two weeks, with weekly hotfixes for bugs, just a thought. For now however I will be looking else where. I most likely will only look at Sitefinity again next year.

I can only agree to post from @Jean. I will never put my reputation at risk !!! The Sitefinity 4.0 is really a mistake with pricing and functionality.

Luckily, we rescheduled all our plans, as the status/events prior Q1 didn't exactly promise clear skies for the release.
We can live with this situation a little longer, and really prefer to wait instead of wasting more time on an unfinished product with the lack of information.

What worries me is the handling of the migration issue. I've found very little info we can rely on.
It is not that I envy those starting fresh with SF4. To me, this simply means that the product is not finished for serious development and production use.
Again, some info would probably make me reasonably happy again:

- When (relative to the actual release date of Q1) can we expect to see something like a considerably fixed version of the toolkit at sitefinitymigration.codeplex.com, something that Telerik would embrace?
I think I read somewhere that the Q2, as the first release, would include some kind of improved migration features.
Honestly, can someone admit or deny, that by Q2 later this summer is when we first can expect to be able to convert even rather simple projects?

I also suggest that Telerik maintains a rather complete table of features and methods that are not fully ported from 3.7 to version 4.
Or please tell me if it's around somewhere. Thanks.

It would still be awesome if we could get an internal today (if possible)...I'll take a memory leak in a dev environment since its already identified.

Steve

You know you ask your buddies where you at when they are suppose to be somewhere...they will usually tell you they are about 10 minutes closer then they actually are. I'd bet this is the same.

@Jerami

Your comment gave me hope. I can wait 10 more minutes :-)

Sure am glad your body dont tell you they are about 10 days closer then they really are.

Greetings Markus

I have to say that this hurts, waiting, dissapointing clients and all the stress that goes along with breaking promises and commitments. I can also say, as the lead developer of my team, that I would do the exact same thing the Sitefinity team did which was to not send out 4.1 unless it worked. Quality has to be priority one as your reputation relies on it.

So the pain, ours and theirs (and they are going through pain), is unfortunate but in the end will make things better. I have confidence that Telerik will pull Sitefinity back on track and will be what we all expect, what we all know it can be. There is a reason why we use Sitefinity and that is because it is the best or at the very least the best bang for the buck. I for one am not jumping ship, cashing in my chips or selling the farm.

4.0 with all of its problems is still a very good start and there are some awsome features in 4.0 that I find out about everyday where I stop and say to myself "wow, that's a pretty awesome feature". Hopefully that will continue with 4.1.

Dear all,

I’m pleased to announce that we solved all critical problems last night. Today and this weekend will be spent on final testing and verification. We are planning to release early next week - on Monday or Tuesday.

On behalf of Sitefinity team, please, accept our sincere apologies for this delay. We were working around the clock to make this release happen and were hit by a series of problems in the last hours before delivery. Going forward we will devote more attention to risk planning and mitigation.

We also fully recognize the importance of timely and open communication.  In the midst of our efforts to solve the we did not provide you with clear indication of what was going on.  We will be more open with our expected release dates and delays from now on.

For those of you interested in release details, a preview of Release Notes is available on this link. Feel free to comment or ask questions. Unfortunately, an internal build is not possible due to a limitation of our licensing system which doesn’t allow releasing internal build for a new product version (4.1.).

For all of you with late client projects because of our delay, please, mention that in your tickets and we will try to treat your requests with great urgency and help you catch up with the delays.

Now that Q1 is nearly here let me share our plans for the coming months:
We have collected your feedback and are planning to act on it very quickly in Q2. To achieve this, we are growing the team and improving our processes. Going forward we will place more focus on risk allocation and testing processes so that we can deliver with precision. 

As always, your ideas and participation in the community will be followed and taken into consideration.

Thanks for your continued support!

Yours sincerely,

Kalina Maneva
Unit Manager
Sitefinity Team

Thanks a lot for the heads up, looking forward to get our hands on this release and help you guys to achieve every goal in the future, in any way we can. I would also extend a big thank you to the whole team for the extra effort they have put in solving this issue.
Andrés.

@Kalina,

That's great news, and thank you, for at least recognizing the communication issues over the last week.  Now, I suggest that the developers go home and get some certainly needed sleep, and let the testers have a sleepless weekend!!!!

Thanks,

Greg

@Kalina

I would look at the release note preview again. In IE 9 it sure looks like there is some mentioning of 3.x and the same text appears twice.

So the release news are kind of alpha stage :-)

Markus

@Markus,

LOL... I noticed too, but I wasn't going to go there.  I just figured they're so tired, they're seeing double...  maybe even a little dillusional.  I think we've all been there (though it was a hell of allot easier 20 years ago!) :-)

Greg

@all

www.sitefinity.com/.../whats-new.aspx

Yeeeehaaaa

Happy programming

Thanks to the whole Telerik team for working overtime and making this happen.

Markus

Hi Markus and all,

Thank you for your support guys. Our greatest reward is to see that you appreciate our work and enjoy the product.