(Disclaimer:  This post represents my opinions only, and not necessarily any opinions from Telligent)

There are some pretty anxious folks participating in this thread concerning Telligent’s revamped shipping schedule for CS 2.0 (and the decision to pull full ASP.NET 2.0 support from the impending CS 2.0 release, namely the ASP.NET membership features); yes, ASP.NET 2.0 support was supposed to be part of the CS 2.0 release…but this isn’t really the 2.0 release (this is where things get a little confusing).  Ok, this is the new 2.0 release…but originally it was just going to be a 1.2 release and during that time, no thought was given to implementing ASP.NET 2.0 support for 1.2…the devs were super busy implementing other really cool features (which IMO far outweigh any perceived benefit of supporting the membership providers “out of the box” as this feature has been back ported into the 1.x branch since the beginning).  When the decision to move it from a point release to a major release was made, it was pretty much too late given everything that was on the plate development-wise.  What was the original CS 2.0 release has been rebranded as a 3.0 release, which will be a fully supported ASP.NET 2.0 application.

Some people seem to think that just because a major version release of something comes out (ASP.NET in this case) that development simply ceases to exist on previous versions.  As is usually the case with MS releases, developers will more than likely continue to use the previous version until either a point release of the new version (ASP.NET 2.1), or at the very least a service pack.  So in the end, the effort it would take to fully support ASP.NET 2.0 on CS 2.0 is simply a matter of keeping it on a platform that is:

• Still the predominant MS web application development platform (and will be for at least 9–12 more months).
• Widely understood (i.e. when issues crop up, there are usually plenty of solutions already out there).
• Mature (the 1.x branch of .Net has been out for quite a while now).

In the end it actually cuts down time between releases for a product if you take a more iterative approach, and not try to stuff the entire kitchen sink into one release.

There are literally dozens of new features in the CS 2.0 release that will need to be supported.  Granted, the community usually does a bang-up job of jumping on top of stuff and helping each other out over on the forums, but when CS does finally move to the ASP.NET 2.0 platform, in essence we have to support ASP.NET as well…all of that support (fixing bugs, conversations, etc) burn into development time down the line, and ultimately affects what features get put in, and when.  And as I stated above, the sheer amount of new features in CS 2.0 outweigh any of the new ASP.NET 2.0 features, and because of that there are going to be bugs that need to be fixed for CS 2.1, which also takes time.  It’s also worth mentioning that CS 2.0 will indeed compile and run on ASP.NET 2.0, it just won’t be what could be called a “native” ASP.NET 2.0 app.  As always, the source will be released as well so people can always add whatever they need if need be.

The main push for CS 3.0 will be full support for ASP.NET 2.0 (along with other features of course)…the point is, when it is done wouldn’t folks rather it be done right rather than as a last minute effort and be potentially half-baked?  So just how important are some of the new ASP.NET 2.0 features to make it compelling enough to move right now?  Not enough to risk pushing back the ship date, or implement it half assed IMO.  Sometimes you just can’t win…people want more features now, but then will complain when the ship date gets pushed back; or will complain about lack of features no matter how quickly you get the product out the door.  That’s just how it is though…look at the mess MS got itself into by shipping (what many are saying) half done products over the past several weeks.

Ok I’m done; congrats if you made it this far :-).