2.0 support lifetime

[Martin Pool]

On 25 March 2010 01:23, Gordon Tyler <gordon at doxxx.net> wrote:
> On 24/03/2010 3:34 AM, Martin Pool wrote:
>>  * each release requires some work to release, announce, and package;
>> some more of this can be automated but there is still a cost; distro
>> maintainers may feel obliged to package everything
>
> This is the position that I am in. I made improvements to the 2.1
> packaging system for Mac OS X and I'm wondering if I should be expending
> the effort to do the same for 2.0.

Generally I would set the reward:risk bar pretty high for the stable
branches and installer/packaging changes tend to be risky because
they're exposed to many environmental factors.  So Ian's installer
scripting changes are only going into 2.2 for example.  If there is a
lot of extra effort to do it in 2.0 and not a lot of user benefit I
wouldn't.  Many core bug fixes can be done equally easily against 2.0
so we might as well.

For you is it mostly just having the series around that causes the
work, or is it actually doing the releases?

I had a look at the download counts and clearly people do keep using
the stable series binary installers.  It's a bit hard to tell just how
much or how urgently they want them though.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>