Personally I think it's a bit unfair that non-subscribers, who report bugs and test cases, don't get access to the release that includes their bug fix. Without their work there's a reasonable chance that that particular bug may go unnoticed.
Perhaps a good compromise would be to introduce a system whereby anyone who reported an accepted bug would automatically be given access to the release that contained the fix. This would be a way of saying thank you to those non-subscribers who spend a lot of time creating test cases for their report. This would also probably give the advantage of a lot more people trying to find bugs, so that they could get the next release. In this way Sencha would gain a lot of free testing. I think there are a lot of developers out there who have stopped reporting bugs, and instead are just patching their local copy, as they can't see much benefit for the effort that's required.
I also wish that Sencha would stop putting new features into minor releases. Personally I'd prefer if they would branch the code when new features are to be added, and then issue minor releases that only contain bug fixes. That way I could update to the new, minor, release and get my bugs fixed, without the worry that the new version would change how things are done, thus breaking my existing code. This way subscribers would be given access to new features, and non-subscribers would only have access to the bug-fix releases, which I think is what most people are after.
Originally Posted by fdp
