News hit the various rumor sites that Apple allegedly seeded a small update through System Update today for Leopard. A couple people commented that they were concerned about another possible delay in the release date. Going on past history, they frequency of seeds usually goes up as GM status nears and that it usually takes 3-4 weeks from GM to release due to DVD duplication time. Both valid points that would lead one to believe we may see another delay in Leopard’s ship date. This observation was followed up by the usual hysterics about how they have to get leopard as soon as possible and that Apple better not delay it again. Some are even comparing Leopard to Vista.

All I can say is get over it. Let Apple finish up development and get it out when it is ready. It’s not the end of the world if they have to push it back a couple more weeks or even a month or two. I want to see it released as much as the next guy. It has a ton of cool new stuff in it, especially for developers. But I’d rather them release a good, stable product for 10.5.0 then to get something that’s still full of bugs just to make a goal that was made 6 month earlier. People will bitch and moan either way, so Apple please go with the stable release scenario. It doesn’t do anyone, any good to get it right away if it isn’t usable until 10.5.1 due to the issues that were left in to get it out the door on time.

And to the folks comparing it to Vista, it’s no even close. Vista was delayed 4 years, not 6 months. Leopard also has not had almost every big feature stripped from it in order to finally get it out the door like Vista did. It still has everything that was announced. It’s just taking a little longer then the initial estimate, which is tricky do do in software to begin with, thought it would to get all of the bugs and issues worked out. If it was like Vista we would be getting it in 2010 without time machine, boot camp, core animation, and spaces.