Release management thoughts for Dapper Drake

[Jeff Waugh]

<quote who="Scott James Remnant">

> >     * GNOME 2.14, KDE
> >     * Firefox 1.5
> >     * Xorg 7
> >     * OpenOffice.org 2
> >     * Linux 2.6.new (probably 2.6.14)
>
> Which pretty much defines dapper main ... so exactly what do you want to
> freeze again?!

Whoa dude, main is much bigger than that.

> I think if we do want to do this "stable upstreams" release, the first
> things we should ditch are the above set and instead release with a
> known-good GNOME 2.12, Xorg 6.8, etc.

Nup, there are good, worthwhile reasons to continue with feature goals such
as these (remember, we're doing desktop support for 3 years, not 5 years).

> And I still think it's a bad idea; we've built up our reputation and
> user-base on the idea of having 6-monthly releases of the latest software
> -- and to suddenly not do that for a release seems like a mistake to me.

Much of the software with immediate end-user benefit will be covered by
feature goals. The core system, and in particular server stuff, would not.

> Given the kernel is our primary source of hardware compatibility and
> drivers, having two kernels seems like just making like difficult for our
> users.  "Do you want the kernel behind door A, or door B?"

I don't think so - there are two very clear use cases here, which could
possibly be strengthened by strict support policy.

- Jeff

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