Roadmap for Lubuntu

[Pierre Gobin]

Very interesting. This roadmap for Lubuntu seems to be really promising.

You talk about dropping 13.10 release for Lubuntu. I understand the 
reasons, and I tend to agree with that. Nevertheless, how can we combine 
that with the fact that Ubuntu 13.04 as a 9 months support ; what about 
the support during the period from January to April 2014 ?

The idea of making Lubuntu 14.04 a LTS release is a really good news. 
Did you think about the time of this support (3 or 5 years) ?

When you talk about working on a QLubuntu session, does it mean that 
there will be, alongside Lubuntu, a QLubuntu version opened for testing ?

To finish, I would like to thank you and everybody involved in Lubuntu 
13.04 development for this new great release.

Kind regards,
Pierre Gobin

Le 26/04/2013 01:52, Julien Lavergne a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> First and following Phill, I want to thank you all for this 13.04
> release. Releases after releases, it seems to go smoother than the
> last one :-)
>
> However, it's time to think about the future. During the last cycle,
> there were a lot of news from Canonical about the future of Ubuntu.
> Lubuntu is part of the family, so every big changes in Ubuntu affect
> Lubuntu. However, and I want to make it clear for anyone : Lubuntu is
> a community project, with its own release schedules, its own choices …
>
> That's said, let's go with some ideas :-) What I'm going to say, it's
> a very long proposal, open for discussions. But discussions mean
> arguments if you have another opinion ;-)
>
> Next steps are 13.10, and 14.04 which should be a LTS version for
> Ubuntu. Last LTS (12.04), I considered that we were not ready for such
> commitment. I was also unsure of the work needed to make a good LTS.
> With more experience, I have now a better vision of this goal.
>
> So, let's make it simple, I would like Lubuntu 14.04 to be a LTS version.
>
> But claiming we want a LTS its' not enough. First, we need to make it
> stable enough, so we can safely claim it's a LTS, because people who
> install a LTS want a stable system. But, I also would like to make it
> sexy enough to be proud of it, to make people happy to recommend it. I
> would like to make it THE release of Lubuntu, the reference of all
> Lubuntu releases. To achieve it, I have several goals in mind, items
> that I consider we need to finish for the LTS, and I think we can
> finish them :
>
> - Finish lxsession, to make the system fully customizable and able to
> run minimal set of applications by default (I'll talk about it later,
> when you will be able to test it properly).
> - Fully translatable : it's vital to make it available in a maximum of languages
> - Artwork : finish the icon theme for a GTK environment, finish the
> other pieces of the artwork and its integration, to make Lubuntu even
> more beautiful
>
> Another item I would like to add, but I'm not sure we will be able to
> make it, it's an off-line documentation, or a nice manual.
>
> Of course, we need also the usual bug fixes and small improvements
> everywhere, but the main focus should be on those topics.
>
> Also, soon we will need to decide which applications we want in this
> LTS. We should do it in an other discussion, but it's the right time
> to do big changes if we consider they are good.
>
> Considering all the big changes which may happen for 13.10, I'm also
> thinking of the possibility to not do a proper 13.10 release,
> depending of the state of 13.10 after all the big structural changes,
> and near feature freeze. Again, it can be reconsidered in due time,
> but we may keep this in mind. I'm prepared to drop 1 release if we can
> do a very good 14.04 LTS.
>
> And after 14.04 ?
>
> Well, you probably know that Canonical is pushing for a Qt switch over
> GTK, but also by changing it's display manager (MIR). You may know
> also that LXDE is thinking about switching to Qt too, by joining
> forces with Razor-qt desktop environment. All those changes may be an
> opportunity to start another adventure, using Razor-qt as a base. It's
> also a reason to release 14.04 as a LTS, because it could be the final
> release with LXDE and GTK.  We will also be free to make very big
> changes for 14.10, because we know we have a LTS behind to recommend,
> for a long time.
>
> To prepare this, I'll also work on a specific session (call QLubuntu,
> pronounce it “Cute Lubuntu” ;-)), to test during 13.10 and 14.04, if
> the option to go with Qt is possible.
>
> So, what do you think about it ? :-)
>
> Regards,
> Julien Lavergne
>