reflecting on first UDS session on "rolling releases"

Scott Kitterman ubuntu at kitterman.com
Wed Mar 6 18:49:05 UTC 2013


Allison Randal <allison at ubuntu.com> wrote:

>On 03/06/2013 07:51 AM, Anca Emanuel wrote:
>> [quote]As the conversation runs on, these "enthusiasts" appear to be
>a smaller
>> and smaller subset of the Ubuntu user base.[/quote]
>> 
>> You will be surprised how many people prefer an rolling release.
>> 
>> Think a bit: that will be the next LTS, so it need to be stable every
>> day, and extra for the LTS release day.
>
>They may want the fresher software, yes. But if the rolling un-release
>is too bleeding-edge, floods them with untested/unstable updates,
>crashes regularly, randomly breaks their apps because the API carpet
>was
>yanked out from under them, etc, then really, they won't be able to use
>it.
>
>We effectively have two possible alternate futures on the table:
>
>A) The "rolling release" is essentially a development archive for the
>next LTS, and not intended for general use.
>
>B) It is a real rolling release, with high enough quality that we
>recommend it for anyone and everyone to use.
>
>
>The only version of reality we can deliver tomorrow is (A). But (B) is
>possible with 6 months of intensely hard work, or a year of moderately
>hard work.
>
>It's not yet clear if (A) or (B) is the ultimate goal, they're still
>suspended as a quantum superposition of equally possible futures. But,
>the engineering plans to achieve (A) or (B) look very different.
>
>Allison

It's also unclear how you do A and B together, since at some point you have to freeze in preparation for release. 

Scott K




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