New 1.14 RC date?

[Jeff Licquia]

Ben Finney wrote:
> I think more assurance is required than this; the default assumption
> should be “if it's not clearly ready for release, it's not ready”.

And how do we get that assurance?

To my mind, forcing developers to not release beta-quality formats 
(clearly marked as such) won't magically improve the quality of released 
formats; it just means that we won't know when we're beta-testing a new 
format or not without closely following the mailing list.

I think we've all had the experience of being unwitting beta testers for 
supposedly release-quality code.  Are we actually advocating that the 
bzr devs be less honest about when this happens with bzr?

What's missing here is some assurance that "clearly ready" has a meaning 
in the absence of broader testing, or that broader testing can be 
achieved some other way.

I seem to be hearing the developers say that the only proven way to get 
that broader testing is to let people play with beta formats without 
having to reinstall bzr.  If you say this isn't true, what evidence do 
you have to counter the experiences of the devs?