Plasma 5 on Kubuntu 14.10

[Rohan Garg]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Rohan Garg <rohangarg at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> ## Description
>
> Plasma 5 is an evolutionary release of the popular plasma desktop
> workspace.  Plasma 5 runs on top of a fully hardware-accelerated
> graphics stack,
> using Qt 5, QML 2 and an OpenGL(-ES) scenegraph to deliver graphics
> onto the users' screens. This allows the rendering to be faster, more
> efficient, less power-hungry and enables a smoother user experience by
>  freeing up resources of the system processor. Plasma 5 completes
> the migration of the workspace to Qt Quick that has begun in earlier  releases.
>
> Kubuntu would like to ship an ISO that provides the Plasma 5
> experience while also shipping the regular KDE Software Collection
> with Plasma 1 ISO,
> so that users may be able to choose between a tested stable system and
> a newer system still in heavy development.
>
> ## The plan
>
> KDE Frameworks 5 (the libraries which Plasma 5 is based on ) will have
> a monthly release cadence, in order to iron out bugs faster while also
> providing
> new features to application developers. Unlike kde4libs in the KDE
> Softare Collection that it supercedes, it will not have bugfix only
> releases.
>
> Plasma 5 will most likely have a 3 month support/release cycle, with
> bug fixes every month.
>
> With respect to KDE Frameworks 5 and Plasma 5, the Kubuntu team makes
> the following commitments :
>
> * KDE Frameworks 5 will be updated to the last release until feature
> freeze, since upstream does not offer any bug fix updates for KF5
>
> * Any future releases of KDE Frameworks 5 after feature freeze will be
> delivered via the Kubuntu PPA's
>
> * Plasma 5 will be delivered via the Kubuntu Next PPA for the utopic
> cycle in order to match up with upstreams faster cadence and to
> stabalize our own packages
>
>
> ## Why do we want a separate ISO
>
> Since Plasma 5 has undergone a huge change architechturally, we want
> to play it safe, while also providing a way for users to provide
> feedback to
> upstream KDE. Since Plasma 5 has no history of bug fixes, we also
> prefer not to get the packages into the archive and would not request
> an MRE. Providing packages
> via a PPA seems the most reasonable way to go about solving this
> problem.  Note that even if Plasma 5 were suitable for MRE, the
> libraries it depends on, KF5
> are not, so post-release maintenance of KF5 will limited to security
> fixes and cherry-picking selected patches for severe issues.  This may
> impact our
> ability to update Plasma 5 post-release in the PPA.
>
> Once the software matures upstream, we plan to push the packages into
> Ubuntu 15.04 once the archive opens, and then eventually switch to
> Plasma 5
> as the default desktop environment at some point in the future.
>
> Until such a change happens, we would still like users to try out
> Plasma 5 and provide feedback, which is why we would like a separate
> ISO to be made from
> packages from a PPA.
>
> Cheers
> Rohan Garg
> For the Kubuntu Team


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