[Kubuntu-council] Backports PPA policy for 18.04 LTS

[Nate Graham]

Personally I'd prefer to upgrade Qt in the backports PPA. People who use 
that PPA already know they're hopping off the LTS train and want the 
latest and greatest from KDE. I think the overlap between that group of 
people and the people who are okay with upgrading Qt is pretty much 100%.

Nate


On 05/21/2018 07:52 PM, Valorie Zimmerman wrote:
> On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 1:12 AM, Rik Mills <rikmills at kubuntu.org> wrote:
>> Our default PPA policy for LTS releases states that [1]
>>
>> "Monthly KDE software release backports are made available through the
>> Kubuntu PPA for as long as supported by the native LTS software stack
>> but no longer than 2 years."
>>
>> For 16.04 LTS we allowed an upgrade of Qt in the backports PPA [2] from
>> 5.5 to 5.6.x, however this was not altogether a radical decision as the
>> Qt 5.6 release was a LTS one, and already being built and maintained by
>> the Ubuntu phone/Qt team in their overlay PPA.
>>
>> For 18.04 LTS, we are already on Qt 5.9 LTS, with more point releases to
>> come, hopefully as SRU updates to the main archive.
>>
>> Now Plasma 5.13 requires Qt => 5.10, so we need to discuss and decide an
>> acceptable course of action, assuming that we wish to provide this and
>> future updates update via a PPA to our users.
>>
>> Realistic options are IMO:
>>
>> (a) Provide updated Qt once again in our backports PPA, but make it
>> quite clear that the level of support, both immediate an ongoing, if
>> users choose to add that and upgrade will be limited by the fact that
>> they are deliberately choosing to move off an LTS supported stack.
> 
> I think that this is not a good idea for Bionic.
> 
>> (b) Keep backports PPA building against Qt 5.9.x, and provide Plasma
>> backports and other software dependant on newer non-LTS Qt in a separate
>> more 'experimental' PPA.
> 
> How about something like Plasma-Backports PPA? Make it clear, as you
> say, that updating Qt and Plasma this way will mean hopping off the
> LTS train. Having a regular Backports which allows LTS users to
> upgrade applications and Plasma LTS is good.
> 
>> (c) Something else? Comment welcome.
>>
>> For simplicity (a) is appealing, and more or less what users seem to be
>> expecting us to do for them. (b) however has some advantages as it would
>> perhaps allow users (say organisational ones) to upgrade to new KDE
>> Applications releases (18.04, 18.08 etc) and others backports, without
>> moving off LTS supported Qt, assuming future Apps are compatible.
>>
>> With Plasma 5.13 as few weeks away [3], and bugfix release to that which
>> we would probably want to wait for before pushing to a not experimental
>> location, not to mention getting Qt built, we have some thinking time. I
>> would also note the decision will be tempered by practical and technical
>> considerations the development team find while doing test builds, and
>> evaluating the quality and stability of the non LTS Qt.
>>
>> Thank you. I look forward to comments.
>>
>> Rik Mills
>> Kubuntu Council
>> Kubuntu Developer
>>
>> [1] https://community.kde.org/Kubuntu/Policies#Long_Term_Support_.28LTS.29
>> [2] https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/ubuntu/backports
>> [3] https://community.kde.org/Schedules/Plasma_5
> 
> Thanks for asking!
> 
> Valorie
>