Release management thoughts for Dapper Drake

[Dag Rune Sneeggen]

 From personal experience, one has to really appreciate the fact that Desktop and server are really two absolutely
different things.
Perhaps stating the obvious, but follow along here...
This discussion is wandering far off into a pitch-dark forest.
For a server you'd like rock stability, and in most cases you really don't care if it has gcc 3.3 or gcc 4.x. It's all about
security/exploits and stability for a server. A server-targetted OS should have years and years of support, with little
stability and security issues. Here Red Hat does a good job in many peoples eyes. Because they support ancient RH version.
On the other hand, for a Desktop OS people want above all to be in-the-loop. They want the latest flashy Gnome, Firefox,
and similar software. They want bluetooth support and iPod support. Tomorrow there might be a new Creative player that
totally shakes iPod off its throne. Then everyone wants instant support for that.

Where I'm getting at, is that the whole 6 month release cycle "adopted" from Debian, is a compromise that leans slightly towards
the server users.

Perhaps a solution could be to emphasize two main different Ubuntu versions, a Desktop and a Server release.
The server should have a slow release with heavy testing, and good security focus. The desktop should be a "flowing" and
evolving version, which tries to retain a moderately safe and bug-free enviroment.

Or perhaps not... Its a huge dilemma. *IMHO* Ubuntu should focus on what it does best and what it originally started out as,
a Desktop GNOME-based Linux/BSD distrobution. :)

Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> Stephan Hermann wrote:
> 
> 
>>"promise" should state out clearly, that the support only complies to
>>the features promised for e.g. gnome 2.14.x
>> 
>>
> 
> Hmm... Jeff, others, would you think users expect to see updates to
> Dapper to include further Gnome point releases? Like 2.14.2, 2.14.3 etc,
> should those appear on the scene? Seems like the sorts of things Gnome
> would put in such releases are exactly the sorts of things we would want
> to go into Dapper. Thoughts?
> 
> 


-- 

Cheers,
Dag Rune Sneeggen(nix-dev at dudcore.net)
---

Tapper Package Manager (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tapper-pm/) --> Do you want to miss the fun? :o