MyBB don’t set release dates for major feature releases, like 1.4 (when it was in development), 1.6, and 2.0. There are numerous questions asked on when releases will be, and why we don’t give release dates. This isn’t an ‘official’ response, just my general musings, but is probably pretty accurate.
Why don’t we set release dates??
There are two main reasons why I think we don’t set release dates.
First off, if we set a release date, there’s a chance we’ll overrun. We may decide that we need to spend more time on it to get it to an acceptable level to be released, which may mean we’ll overshoot the release date, or have to reschedule it. All this would do is annoy people, because we’d overrun, even if it was just to make the product better. General result: people complain.
Secondly, if we set a release date, to make sure we meet the deadline to avoid the above situation, we might end up rushing the release to get it out on time, so people are happy. Inevitably, this would mean mistakes would be made, which could be bugs in the software, or missing something leading to a security issue. This then causes problems for the users. General result: people complain.
So, we don’t set release dates. That way, we don’t need to make sure we’re finished by a certain time, we don’t need to rush to meet a deadline, meaning there’s less chance of making mistakes due to being rushed. Then again, people still moan that they don’t know when the release is coming but hey, at least we know that when it does come, it’ll be stable, so the end result will be good. Of course, we may set internal time targets or guestimates of when we aim to get the next release done by, but this wouldn’t be set in stone and would just be when we ‘hope’ it’ll be released; it wouldn’t be the end of the world if this wasn’t met.
So, when will the next version be released??
It’ll be ready when it’s ready.
When it’s ready, it’ll be released.
It’ll be released when it’s ready.
You get the idea.