Kubuntu LTS

[Tom M. Shaw]

On Friday 21 December 2007 01:54:09 Krzysztof Lichota wrote:
>
> I think KDE 3.5 is not high-maintainance thing as it has been in Kubuntu
> for many years and there are no changes after 3.5.8. It is just keeping
> the state as it is.
>
There's more to Kubuntu that just the KDE 3.5 series, there's a lot that gets 
updated every release that interacts with the GNOME side so a lot gets done 
to keep the KDE things working. Obviously this isn't as bad as it used to be 
but it still takes developer time. I think what a lot of people are 
overlooking that in a sense you have the 'stable' 3.5 release for Kubuntu and 
that is Gutsy and all it would take is the normal maintenance it is receiving 
to satisfy those concerned.

>
> KDE 3.5 part does not require any significant changes. Just take what is
> already available in Gutsy and pass it on.
>

Again I think the passing it on is what is causing more work just to gain the 
same KDE 3.5 desktop. It's going to happen anyway but with Gutsty you not 
only have the same desktop but you get 6 months of testing and some backports 
by lots of people. I know it's kind of a crazy idea but maybe a Kubuntu Gutsy 
iso could be re-rolled out in the next few months or sometime. There's quite 
a few updates that would make it a really good stable release and with very 
few downloads after installation.

>
> Dapper is already 16 months old (close to 18 months of usual support
> lifecycle) and does not fit many user requirements, especially with
> newer hardware. People need another LTS release.
>
I'd just like to point out that what you're saying is that the the last LTS 
release targeted for 3 years was only good for 1.5 years for a lot of users, 
so it's kind of hard to convince anyone to make another 3 year release when 
the last one might not have made it past the normal 18 month cycle. I think 
the users that want stable are different than those who actually need 3 years 
of support on something and every 6 month release fits the need of being 
stable for the majority of the target audience.

In my view Kubuntu is the best KDE distro there is right now and with these 
decisions being made to put out a KDE4 version it gets even better to a lot 
of other people. I build KDE4 from trunk many times a week and it really 
isn't in too bad of shape and in a few months it easily will be giving the 
KDE3 desktop some serious competition for stability and usefulness.