Follow Up from "Let's Discuss Interim Releases"

[Otus]

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 6:51 AM, Robert Bruce Park
<robert.park at canonical.com> wrote:
> Although I feel quite strongly about my support for the rolling
> release model, if it is rejected, we can't continue as we used to. We
> simply do not have the resources to support more than two releases at
> a time. I'd prefer to only have to support LTS+rolling, but LTS+"one
> interim at a time" would be an acceptable second best.

If you need/wish to cut down the number of supported releases all the
way down to two at a time (from current ~5) there are really only two
options:

1. Cut LTS support from 5 to 4 years, do not offer support for the
rolling dev version.
2. Cut LTS support from 5 to ~2 years, support a single release
(rolling or non-LTS) in addition.

Either way the LTS release, which OEMs and (some) ISVs presumably
depend on, would need a shorter support period. Two years of LTS
support seems completely untenable, so that only really leaves one
path forward, if two releases are indeed the maximum that can be
supported. It comes down to simply cutting all non-LTS releases and
shaving a year off LTS support.