Ubuntu 13.10 should be upgraded to LTS status

[Mark Rogers]

On 18 December 2013 10:33, Oliver Grawert <ogra at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> wow, you highly underestimate how much manpower it costs to support a
> release for *five* years ... LTS releases need to be selected in advance
> so that the versions of the software we include in the release are
> actually supported by their upstreams for that long time or if they are
> not, at least easily supportable by us.
>

Fair comment, and since raising it 6 weeks ago I'd pretty much come to the
same conclusion.

The core point remains that Ubuntu ought to have a specific plan to support
migrating XP users, assuming those users are desirable.


> what scott said is absolutely right, XP users should just use 13.10 and
> upgrade to 14.04 once it is out.
>

So there's a definite preference for 13.10 -> 14.04 rather than 12.04 ->
14.04? That's something that needs spelling out.

If 13.10 -> 14.04 is the preferred route then there should be a fairly
strong commitment that any hardware (and in particular graphics hardware)
supported by 13.10 will continue to be supported in 14.04. Doing an
in-place upgrade to 14.04 that massively breaks things and leaves an ex-XP
user facing a command prompt will set public perception back by years. And
indeed this is only relevant if 13.10 supported the hardware typically
found on XP systems. There's a very small time window between 14.04's
release and end of support for 13.10 in order to get everyone upgraded.

To that end I've tended to favour 12.04 -> 14.04 as 12.04 is more likely to
run on older hardware (as it is itself older), and there's a much bigger
time window in which to migrate to 14.04. Although perhaps a 12.04 respin
with backports for things like LibreOffice would be a better compromise
(older LO versions don't handle MS office files well and again this will
affect perception of Ubuntu in general).

What is lacking here is a clear migration plan for XP users to follow, and
I think that is a missed opportunity. Whether or not 13.10 LTS (or 13.10
"LTS-Lite") is an appropriate part of that migration plan is probably to
miss the main point.

Mark
-- 
Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450
Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER
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