Any planned change on backports policy?

[Martin Alderson]

Hi all,

Is there any thought on changing the current policy on updating software on 
old releases?

I fear this is going to put many users off using Ubuntu.

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.

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).

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.

PS: If this is the wrong mailing list please notify me; I apologise in 
advance if this is the case!

Regards,
Martin
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