Beta 1 development starts

[Jeffrey Dever <js...@sympatico.ca>]

For all current contributors and anyone wishing to contribute to 
HttpClient, we are now in the Beta 1 development stage.

There is currently a rather complete list of bugs in bugzilla now.  To 
find them, do a query for the *Commons* project, *HttpClient* component, 
and target milestone *2.0 Beta 1*.
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/

There are some strightforward tasks such as:
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16416

Some complex tasks like:
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10807

And some long and tedious tasks such as:
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16429

If you are interested in working on any task, please reassign the bug to 
yourself and add this list address to the cc field 
(commons-httpclient-dev@jakarta-apache.org).  When you have a patch, it 
can be attached directly to the bug.  Any discussion can take place on 
this list.

While the Alpha 2 release was done just yesterday, it was 14 months from 
the previous Alpha 1 release.  While there were many reasons for the 
previous delay, none of those obstacles are in our way for the Beta 1 
drop, which I think many of us would like to see within the month of 
February.

I look forward to reviewing your patches, reading your comments and 
having a good time on this list!

Your 2.0 release prime,
Jeff Dever
(aka Jandalf)