Roadmap for 14.04

[Nio Wiklund]

Hi Julien,

I'm happy to see your mails as well as your effort to fix the lock of
13.10 :-)

[See inline comments and suggestions]

Best regard
Nio

On 2013-11-18 12:54, Julien Lavergne wrote:
> Before talking about the future of Lubuntu, you have to know and realize
> the followings facts :
> 
> - My availability will not improve in the future. That means I will
> focus on fixing stuff, improving lxsession stuff, try to do some
> documentation, and prepare the future.
> 
> - We have to consider that no one will magically appear to improve the
> code of Lubuntu. It's the case since many months, and I don't think it
> will magically change for the next 6 months. We also don't have the
> infrastructure (documentation, clean process, availability of mentors
> ...) to correctly train new people on the devs team, so even if new
> young and enthusiastic people arrive, they can't really help us if they
> need training, guidance ...We may have some outside help on specific
> topics or bugs, but it will not change deeply Lubuntu as we know it. If
> eventually someone comes with actual work (mean, actual working code),
> we can still consider it if it's well tested.

I think we *must* find a way to engage new people to develop Lubuntu,
even if it would mean completely new ways of doing it. This is
particularly important since your availability will not improve in the
future.

> - LXDE is dying. Well, except pcmanfm, all components are frozen and
> will probably not going to see any improvements in the next 6 months.
> Expect only bug fixes and translations updates.
> 
> - LXQt (the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE, using Qt instead of GTK) is
> slowly taking the place of the LXDE GTK. All work are done on this branch.
> 
> Considering this, and the result of the previous release, we have to
> admit that we need to focus on fixing bugs for 14.04. We can't introduce
> new functionalities and new stuff, unless it fixes bugs, or if someone
> from outside the Lubuntu dev team is actively working on it. In the
> short-term, that means :

Does this mean that you don't think it is worth the effort to supply LTS
for 14.04? In that case, what should we tell the users with old
hardware, who do not want to hop between versions every 6 months:

- use Xubuntu until April 2015
- use LXLE
- use Precise Gnome Classic Tweak
- use Bodhi Linux

or something else?

> - The only LXDE components which will be eventually upgraded will be
> pcmanfm / libfm. The others will be upgraded, but currently there are
> only bug fixes / translation updates releases.
> 
> - Adding light-locker for locking screen, it's actively developed, use
> (or will be used) by Xubuntu, it's in the philosophy of Lubuntu (GTK
> apps without any depends on other environment), it's prettier than
> xscreensaver, more integrated with lightdm, and it will hopefully fix
> the locking problems we have.
> 
> - No others changes in default applications. We removed the more
> problematics ones, and a change will cause more testing, more
> integration work … Generaly, and by default, we are frozen in term of
> functionalities.
> 
> 
> The goal is double :
> 
> - Stabilize this 14.04 as much as we can, so it can be the release
> reference.
> 
> - Prepare an eventual switch to Qt for 14.10, mostly by preparing the
> testing environment for people, and make possible a smooth upgrade from
> the GTK version.
> 
> I'll go through the blueprints open for discussions, but I'll apply
> strictly the “rules” I made above. Don't be surprised …
> 
> Usually, there is a blueprint which summarize the workitems for the
> release (see this for example
> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/community-r-lubuntu-work-items).
> Since the next release is a “all-you-can-fix” roadmap, maintaining it
> will be IMO a waste of time. If you want to work on something specific,
> talk to me by mail or IRC (gilir on #lubuntu).

I'm developing and maintaining tools to make it easier to create USB
boot devices and to install operating systems. So it would be natural
for me to either try to replace usb-creator-gtk or improve it. Since gtk
will soon be obsolete, I could either focus on replacements or a future
version of usb-creator.

> Regards,
> 
> Julien Lavergne
> 
> 
>