[ubuntu-uk] [marketing] Intrepid 8.10 Kubuntu - disaster

[Tim Powys-Lybbe]

In message of 8 Nov, "gav" <revford at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 08, 2008 at 12:41:08PM +0000, Bruce Beardall wrote:
> > I think you raise some important concerns, Alan. As a Gnome user, I can't
> > really say I've had much recent experience beyond a cursory glance at KDE 4
> > but I think this leads to an interesting question:
> > 
> > If we're to advocate Linux [and as far as this list is concerned, Ubuntu]
> > should we be concentrating our advocacy on the LTS release? It's all too
> > easy for anyone on this list to get carried away with the latest and
> > greatest but the vast majority of those we're trying to introduce Linux to
> > are used to the years between each Windows release. Should we be
> > concentrating on introducing them to a release which is intended to be
> > around for a number of years and expected to have a certain level of
> > stability and accessibility?
> 
> 
> As the last couple of releases have had a bumpy start I've been putting LTS
> versions, currently 8.04.1 Ubuntu on new installs for people recently.
> 
> I think I'll stick with the 8.04.1 Ubuntu disc for a while yet.
> 
> This does ask the question of why the latest releases have had a bumpy start,
> is the new features cut off coming too late?  is it not being tested on a wide
> enough variety of hardware?  Or is it something else?
> 
> Everything seems to be patched quite quickly and a .1 release seems to follow
> shortly that solves most of the release day problems.
> 
> Should we be advising people to wait a week, or even a month before upgrading
> to a new version of Ubuntu?

I remember being told by people from IBM that whenever a new version of
our somewhat critcal software came out, to leave it for six months
before installing it.  That way all the obvious bugs would be found by
those who really had to have some new feature.

I'm not usre I always follow this for myself but for a production
operation, it has to be the right policy.

-- 
Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim at powys.org
             For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/