Strawman: Change the Ubuntu Release Cycle

[Emmet Hikory]

On Jan 1, 2008 2:00 AM, Evan wrote:
> > Given that the current
> > development cycle consists of 2 weeks planning, 15 weeks of feature
> > updates & integration, 6 weeks of integration, and 3 weeks of final
> > testing, it seems that any further reduction in the timeframes would
> > likely lead to a somewhat unstable final product, and would not meet
> > the "stable for everyday use except where 100% uptime is required"
> > goal.
>
> I wasn't aware of this development cycle, and was under the impression
> that there was more testing going on than there actually is.

    My apologies if I was unclear.  Testing usually begins once
planning is complete, so there are actually close to 24 weeks of
testing for each release.  The first 15 are typically limited to users
(or developers) willing to experience a fairly unstable system (with
the exception that the various alpha milestones tend to see wider
testing), the following six tend to attract a wider audience, and the
final three include fairly agressive automated and scripted tests as
well as installation on a wide user base (beta and RC releases).  A
large part of the integration work is the result of this testing, and
would be near impossible without it, as many issues are only exposed
with combinations of software installed, rather than in a single
package.

-- 
Emmet HIKORY