making a workaround web page for bugs, in LTS release, not fixed

[Evan]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 3:51 PM, John Moser <john.r.moser at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 6:53 AM, Marco Pallotta <marco.pallotta at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Often Ubuntu users (expecially new users or user that doesn't know
> > much of Ubuntu bug fixing procedure) are disoriented by the fact that
> > bugs, in LTS releases, aren't fixed (or they are marked as "fix
> > released" if they aren't present anymore in next Ubuntu releases)  if
>
> I'm still surprised that supposedly supported versions don't have bug
> fixes.
>
> You get these kinds of reports:
>
>  - 7.10 is a great release
>  - 8.04 is the worst crap I've ever seen, everything is broken
>  - 8.10 is an amazing release, with all the broken crap in 8.04 fixed
>
> And you get a point in time where this becomes true:
>
>  - 7.10 has mostly working software.
>  - 8.04 has about half its software still broken
>  - 8.10 has all those bugs from 8.04 AND 7.10 fixed, and all its software
> works
>  - To get any of 2 or 3 dozen apps in 8.04 to work, you should upgrade to
> 8.10
>  - To get any of 1 or 2 apps in 7.10 to work, upgrade to 8.10
>
> Ubuntu has had at least one release that was hailed as the biggest
> mistake in history, where the entire system seemed duct taped together
> and very basic functionality was largely broken.  Python errors got
> spit out by things like Serpentine.  Some apps crashed.  The MP3
> encoder crashed immediately if you fed it output from oggdec (gtkpod
> thus didn't function).  The kernel wasn't even stable on some systems,
> due to a scheduler bug or something non-trivial along those lines.  I
> think that was 8.10?
>
> When I finally upgraded, everything was still broken in the old
> version, and everything was working in the new version.  Last I
> looked, everything was still broken in that version.
>
> My question is:  do such versions of Ubuntu remain broken and
> dysfunctional until they're no longer supported?  Is this proper?  Or
> should fixes get backported to all supported releases AND LTS such
> that the oldest version always has the fewest problems, but also fewer
> features?
>

The way I understand it, they go for consistency. Often fixing one thing can
unintentionally break another, so large enterprises (which are technically
who Canonical is targeting) will prefer to leave one known bug unfixed,
rather than try fixing it only to find some other bug pop up which they then
have to workaround separately. I imagine most home users would rather have
the original bug fixed in the first place, but they're not the ones paying
Canonical for support contracts.

Just my two cents,
Evan
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