Avoiding fragmentation with a rolling release

[Martin Pitt]

Michael Hall [2013-02-28 22:04 -0500]:
> This is also something that concerns me in our efforts to make Ubuntu
> a target platform for app developers.  We need to make some commitment
> to supporting platform APIs during these rolling releases between LTS
> so developers know what they can expect.

I don't think that's feasible with a RR model. We don't even control
most of the APIs that are in Ubuntu even.

As Matthew Paul Thomas and others pointed out, we primarily want to
recommend the LTS releases on the download page and for most users, so
that's certainly what ISVs should target, too?

> Personally I don't think "target only LTS releases" is going to be
> acceptable to most ISVs, especially those writing consumer "apps",
> where you can go from nobody to the most downloaded and back to nobody
> in the span of 2 years (think of the rapid rise and fall of games like
> Words with Friends, or Draw Something).

How is that related to the platform they target? If anything, it seems
to me that targetting LTS only is going to make things easier for this
kind of "ephemeral app" use case, as it significantly reduces the
required maintenance and porting of those?

Martin

-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)