It's probably not that big a deal to achieve.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Apr 28, 2008 10:56 PM EDT |
There are already several distros that realease around about the same time. |
| rijelkentaurus Apr 29, 2008 3:14 AM EDT |
Pointless, there are those distros who release when it's ready and not before (and not after), such as Debian, Slackware, PCLOS...even Red Hat and Fedora will push things back if it's not right. Seems that Ubuntu is the only one that is determined to release on a given date come hell or high water. |
| azerthoth Apr 29, 2008 3:46 AM EDT |
Seems the author is caught in the trap that windows users are. Newer is not better, better is better. |
| Bob_Robertson Apr 29, 2008 7:36 AM EDT |
From some of what I've seen written about Hardy Haron, it seems that Ubuntu's "release anyway" has bitten them again. Debian Sid is a moving target. |
| Steven_Rosenber Apr 29, 2008 10:40 AM EDT |
I think Ubuntu has it right, except for one thing. They should continue on the six-month release schedule but have an alternate distro that is like Debian Sid, an "unstable" Ubuntu that provides a test bed for packages so there can be a whole lot more eyes and fingers on them before they get into the "official" release. That way they could do away with so many alphas, betas, tribes and whatever else they call their prereleases. Anything that works in the "unstable" Ubuntu could be cautiously ported to the "stable" branch ... kind of like Debian but without the lock-in that Debian Stable has. They could still keep that kind of lock-in for the LTS release, but if the six-month releases were more like "rolling" releases, except with new CD images every six months, it would go a long way, I think, toward a more bug-free Ubuntu. Or I could be totally wrong ... it's just an idea. |
| azerthoth Apr 29, 2008 12:57 PM EDT |
I have always been of the opinion if your not going to do a rolling release then you do atleast 2 beta releases. I'd rather have a stable release, than "we'll fix it as an update ... oops no time, have to work on the next release". Thats one of the things I like about Debian proper, it's done when it's done, period or a rolling testing/unstable. Time tables for releases is just another way to never get some odds and ends fixed that could take an average distro to an outstanding distro if they would just take a little extra time to do it right. my .02 |
| tracyanne Apr 29, 2008 1:27 PM EDT |
My 3 ha'pence worth. Mandriva have their unstable development tree, you can download and install that at any time during the development process, at the moment it's 2009.0, when it's deemed stable, it's rolled over to the release tree, currently that's 2008.1. I often link to the development repositories to get the very latest version of software that hasn't been backported to the release tree. Mandriva's release policy seems to be to set a target date, and release as close to that date as is reasonable with producing a stable build, they have been known to pass that target date by more than the 2 days they missed it by this time. |
| hkwint Apr 29, 2008 4:24 PM EDT |
Well, who needs releases anyway. If you'd ask me it's only a marketing thing. I even don't know which release of Gentoo I installed begin 2006, but it's just as up to date as Ubuntu 8.04. Releases are a big hassle and they present peaks of work and stress-levels - both to developers and sysadmins - which are not necessary. Also, they come with a lot of confusion (Etch, Etch and a half, Etch updated to unstable almost equalling Lenny or Etch using backports, or Lenny which is unstable, Lenny + experimental: why such a hassle?). Such a 'releasless' update schedule distributes the update hassles over time; so everything comes more gradually. Enabling certain 'new versions' of software in your distro doesn't have to be that hard. For example, I like the Gentoo (BSD?) way were something is 'not tested (yet)', is 'tested and brakes the system' or 'is tested and works'. Something I could explain to my mum. However, LTS and backports and all those things, forget it. |
| garymax Apr 29, 2008 6:33 PM EDT |
"...but have an alternate distro that is like Debian Sid, an "unstable" Ubuntu that provides a test bed for packages so there can be a whole lot more eyes and fingers on them before they get into the "official" release." Would this not be a fork, then? If Ubuntu has an alternate unstable branch running concurrently and only the most stable packages make it into the next release then this would be more akin to a fork than a derivative of Debian. Ubuntu has enough criticism as it is. If Canonical decided to do this, they may as well go their own way, fork the Debian project and become a separate distro entirely. I think the "six-month-release-or-else" mentality leaves some things to be desired. It may haunt them with this release and in future releases. It isn't a good marketing move to release something into the wild and let the community bang the bugs out. Distros like Slackware only release when ready. And the quality shows. And when one man (i.e. The Man, Pat Volkerding) can produce a distro that is of higher quality than what a whole team of developers can present to the public, then something is wrong with the development cycle. With Windows, it only has to be good enough. Let's not fall into the same trap in the open source world. |
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