LTS-to-LTS Cycle Freezes: Transitions

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday, February 25, 2012 12:10:02 PM Ted Gould wrote:
> As we're hitting beta freeze for this LTS I think it's a good time to
> talk about something that gets discussed from time to time, but we
> should commit to for this round of the meta-cycle.  That is quite simply
> having a process for things that aren't in the 6m release cycle, but
> instead on the LTS meta-cycle.  Obviously this can't be decided on this
> mailing list, it'll require a UDS discussion and tech board approval,
> but I think it's good to start here.
> 
> As an concrete example of something that could be done on this meta
> cycle I think we should start talking about technology transitions.
> Things that we don't want to carry, or transitions that we want to
> encourage.  And also things that we're willing to take the pain of
> dealing with, either by dropping packages we love or by committing
> development effort to that transition.  I image many of these will be
> hard for various communities.  But, I think this is part of Ubuntu's
> charter of making opinionated choices for continued inclusion.
> 
> Here is what I'm proposing as a schedule for a transition:
> 
>   LTS + 1: No MIRs approved using the old tech
>   LTS + 2: Old tech not allowed in main, packages demoted at FF
>   LTS + 3: Only bug fixes allowed to packages, no syncs, no updates
>            except to migrate to the new tech.
>   LTS + 4: Packages dropped at FF that use the old tech
>    ^ Probably the next LTS
> 
> For the Precise + 1LTS release I'll start to propose the following
> transitions:
> 
>   Python 2.x -> Python 3
>   GConf      -> GSettings
>   GTK2       -> GTK3
>   Qt4        -> Qt5
> 
> I think there should be an exception process that would get release team
> approval like a standard freeze.  But, in general, this should be
> discouraged (like all freeze exceptions are).
> 
> Any suggestions before I try to formalize this further?

Since Qt5 isn't even released yet, I think that may be premature.

In any case Main/Universe is really an internal Canonical issue.  It's not one 
the community can really weigh in on.

Scott K