LTS and release methodology

[Mackenzie Morgan]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Pär Lidén <par.liden at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/7/10 Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com>:
>> To you, "LTS" may mean "so stable", but to another, it means that problems
>> are actively fixed (which implies some change and therefore instability)
>> even after release.
>
> Hmm, from what I've understood from the official texts, the LTS are supposed
> to be more stable. From the release announcement for Hardy [1]:
>
> Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition features incremental improvements to
>
> familiar applications, with an emphasis on stability for this second Ubuntu
> long-term support release
>
> That sounds to me that the LTS should be more stable than other releases
> ("emphasis on stability"). Maybe I'm reading it wrong; perhaps it should be
> understood as "stability in the long term", not neccessarily stability right
> when it's released, but over time instead.  I've also understood stability
> in these texts as "low bug-count", or something similar. Maybe I've also
> misunderstood that. If so, I'm probably not the only one to misunderstand
> such statements, and it would be wise to consider making them more clear.

I think usually when we say "stable" about a release, it means
un-changing, not necessarily bug-free.  Stable-as-bugless is more a
Debian "we won't release anything until the bug count is below x"
thing.

-- 
Mackenzie Morgan
Linux User #432169
ACM Member #3445683
http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com <-my blog of Ubuntu stuff
apt-get moo