Subject: Re: Kubuntu LTS
Newsgroups: gmane.linux.ubuntu.devel.kubuntu
Date: 2007-12-20 21:38:42 GMT (1 year, 28 weeks, 1 day, 18 hours and 56 minutes ago)
On Thursday 20 December 2007, Jonathan Jesse wrote: [...] | Ok I think we will disagree with this. Just curious as to what has changed | since UDS-Boston when we talked about doing a release of KDE4 for both | Gutsy and Hardy along with LTS of Kubuntu that ran 8.04. That is still the plan, however I believe that for the KDE 4 release, it was just going to be vanilla, as it would be impossible to maintain such a work load with the current amount of contributors for Kubuntu. It is tough to keep up with development at times with the amount we have now, Gutsy is proof. | I think we are doing a diservice to Kubuntu by not creating a Long Term | Support. Kubuntu is already viewed as a 2nd class citizen to Ubuntu and I | think this proves it even further. In fact after using Ubuntu on my wife's | machine I am begining to agree with this as well. | Bring on the LTS No matter the route we take, I believe we would be doing a disservice to Kubuntu. One thing I don't see is what does having an LTS release do to make Kubuntu not look as a 2nd class citizen? KDE 4 right now is all the hype in the community, and I think many of us have recognized this to help us to not be viewed as 2nd class in the future. If we don't put our current resources on KDE 4, then 2nd class might be something we would wish for. Right now, Jonathan Riddell is stretched thin as well as the active contributors/volunteers. It is tough trying to keep up with everything when 99.9% of our developers have a life that comes first before Kubuntu, so many of us contribute when we can. Another thing to consider is this. With our current setup with KDE 3.5, we aren't bringing in any one new to help out. By focusing on KDE 4, one thing we are hoping for is for this to change. Don't get me wrong, I am torn between LTS and non-LTS for a multitude of reasons. I know people want LTS and just as many, if not more, want KDE 4. I am afraid that if we do the LTS way, we will miss out on KDE 4 and the hype behind it. At the same time I worry about those who were looking forward to an LTS release. At the same time, I also realize we do 6 month releases, and majority of our users follow our releases and typically upgrade on release day, the amount of noise created in the past about dist-upgrade breakage supports this. I am sure that Canonical won't let people down with the LTS release side either, as their current clients/customers that are using KDE will need this. I don't see Canonical, nor Kubuntu, not doing security updates over the next couple of years when they arise. Another thing to realize is that upstream is changing as well. More and more KDE applications are focusing on KDE 4 packages and not so much on their current KDE 3 packages. So if we were to go LTS, we would have to also pick up the slack for lack of upstream support as well. If a KDE package gets an update after the 8.04 release, we will still backport it like always for 18 months. In the next 18 months, or even the next 12 months, you are going to see the current set of available KDE 3 apps drop their KDE 3 support. We definitely don't have the manpower to maintain those as well. -- Richard A. Johnson nixternal <at> kubuntu.org GPG Key: 0x2E2C0124
On Thursday 20 December 2007, Jonathan Jesse wrote: [...] | Ok I think we will disagree with this. Just curious as to what has changed | since UDS-Boston when we talked about doing a release of KDE4 for both | Gutsy and Hardy along with LTS of Kubuntu that ran 8.04. That is still the plan, however I believe that for the KDE 4 release, it was just going to be vanilla, as it would be impossible to maintain such a work load with the current amount of contributors for Kubuntu. It is tough to keep up with development at times with the amount we have now, Gutsy is proof. | I think we are doing a diservice to Kubuntu by not creating a Long Term | Support. Kubuntu is already viewed as a 2nd class citizen to Ubuntu and I | think this proves it even further. In fact after using Ubuntu on my wife's | machine I am begining to agree with this as well. | Bring on the LTS No matter the route we take, I believe we would be doing a disservice to Kubuntu. One thing I don't see is what does having an LTS release do to make Kubuntu not look as a 2nd class citizen? KDE 4 right now is all the hype in the community, and I think many of us have recognized this to help us to not be viewed as 2nd class in the future. If we don't put our current resources on KDE 4, then 2nd class might be something we would wish for. Right now, Jonathan Riddell is stretched thin as well as the active contributors/volunteers. It is tough trying to keep up with everything when 99.9% of our developers have a life that comes first before Kubuntu, so many of us contribute when we can. Another thing to consider is this. With our current setup with KDE 3.5, we aren't bringing in any one new to help out. By focusing on KDE 4, one thing we are hoping for is for this to change. Don't get me wrong, I am torn between LTS and non-LTS for a multitude of reasons. I know people want LTS and just as many, if not more, want KDE 4. I am afraid that if we do the LTS way, we will miss out on KDE 4 and the hype behind it. At the same time I worry about those who were looking forward to an LTS release. At the same time, I also realize we do 6 month releases, and majority of our users follow our releases and typically upgrade on release day, the amount of noise created in the past about dist-upgrade breakage supports this. I am sure that Canonical won't let people down with the LTS release side either, as their current clients/customers that are using KDE will need this. I don't see Canonical, nor Kubuntu, not doing security updates over the next couple of years when they arise. Another thing to realize is that upstream is changing as well. More and more KDE applications are focusing on KDE 4 packages and not so much on their current KDE 3 packages. So if we were to go LTS, we would have to also pick up the slack for lack of upstream support as well. If a KDE package gets an update after the 8.04 release, we will still backport it like always for 18 months. In the next 18 months, or even the next 12 months, you are going to see the current set of available KDE 3 apps drop their KDE 3 support. We definitely don't have the manpower to maintain those as well. -- Richard A. Johnson nixternal <at> kubuntu.org GPG Key: 0x2E2C0124