Any planned change on backports policy?

[Martin Alderson]

On 6/1/05, Ante Karamatić <ivoks at grad.hr> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-06-01 at 05:08 +0100, Martin Alderson wrote:
> 
> > It seems very weird to have to update your entire OS just to get a new
> > release of, say, firefox or openoffice with a critical bug fixed in
> > it.
> 
> That's not true. Openoffice.org2 and Firefox 1.1 aren't bugfixes. These
> are new versions of package. If you change firefox/openoffice to newer
> version, then it's most likely you will have to change gnome-vfs, and
> that means you will have to change almost whole gnome, etc...

I didn't make myself clear. What I mean is there is often bugfixes in
the new versions of Firefox/OOo/evolution that you can't get any other
way but upgrading to the newer version.

I understand what you are saying about dependencies. That obviously is
a big problem.

> > Obviously there is the issue of developer resources, but perhaps it
> > would be possible to have 'last release' updates of select packages
> > (Firefox and OpenOffice spring to mind as the most important).
> 
> This could be done unofficialy. If that is so important for you, you
> could pay somone to do it for you. Don't forget that you have security
> updates for Ubuntu packages for 18 months since distribution is out.

It's not a big deal for me. I will always be running the very latest
Ubuntu release if I'm on my Ubuntu computer.

What it is a big deal is the millions of SMB installs which Ubuntu
would be a perfect choice for, apart from this issue. Just go and try
report a bug on OOo when OOo2 is out, you'll be told to go install
OOo2 before getting anywhere.

It's not really acceptable (IMO) to have to tell users who are not
very technically literate that they have to upgrade everything, which
could take a while, and possibly lose lots of configuration
information etc just to fix a, for example, printing bug.

> > While I commend your aggressive release policy, I feel it's going to
> > be very hard for some users to change to Ubuntu when it's nearly
> > impossible to get official updates even for the most current release.
> > For example, when Firefox 1.1 comes out in June/July, it will still be
> > 3-4 months before Breezy is ready. I feel many users will get
> > incredibly frustrated at watching their Windows and Mac friends use
> > all the latest wizz-bang features and them stuck on 1.0, and then
> > having to face the same problem with Firefox 1.5 which is probably
> > going to come out just after Breezy - 5 months of being at least a
> > version behind for Breezy users.
> 
> Well, they should then do what their friends with Mac and Windows did -
> download Firefox/OOorg from getfirefox.com/openoffice.org. Firefox
> doesn't come with Windows/OSX. You don't get IE7 for Windows 2000,
> neither Tiger's Safari in Panther, etc.

Not really possible. It's extremely hard to install Firefox yourself
on Linux and get it to behave in the same way. Things like GNOME
browser handlers get broken, file pickers don't work, mime-types break
and often it only installs for one user in the wrong place.

Your examples are valid but they are exceptions. Microsoft provides
the latest Office on Win2k, Encarta, MSN Messenger, MSN Money and
hundreds of other products on older releases.

Most of Apple's software will install on as far back as Jaguar - you
are right in saying Safari, however.

> --
> Ante Karamatic|--|ivoks(@)grad.hr|--|PGP: D3BDA225
> http://master.grad.hr/~ivoks/|--|ICQ: 64631782
> May, 15. <herve> we're fixing the universe, it's not an easy duty!
> 
>