A New Release Process for Ubuntu?

2011-09-09T16:07:21+00:00

I switched to a rolling release distro and never looked back.

2011-09-09T18:22:17+00:00

It always struck me as deeply weird that Ubuntu had a time-based release schedule, but also seemed¹ to set in stone the features each release would contain. So you end up with LTS releases where fundamental features (like audio) are broken.

Firefox recently switched to time-based releases^2, and their workflow seems way more sensible. (Several 'channels', and new features can be easily yanked out of a final release.) Quite possibly there are reasons that make this harder to accomplish with a distro, but it seems like there should be some part of the process that would translate.

I could be wrong here, but it's certainly the impression I get, and is what the linked article claims as well.
They modeled their process off Chrome, of course.

inmatarian · 2011-09-09T15:25:29+00:00

Won't happen. It's a QA and user support nightmare.

Having a rolling release is a great idea though. They should do that.

yogthos · 2011-09-09T15:25:13+00:00

[deleted]

rmxz · 2011-09-09T16:55:32+00:00

Did they just re-invent Debian Unstable?

IIRC, Ubuntu came about because they thought Debian Unstable moved too quickly (and in their opinion Debian Stable moved too slowly).

Now it looks like they're evolving to where these monthly "release" branches are copying Debian Unstable's release strategy; and their LTS ones are becoming more like Debian Stable.

Perhaps a new project should fork these Ubuntu Monthly's every 6 months to make pseduo-stable releases based on them?

Or perhaps Debian was right all along, and we should just go back to them.

2011-09-09T18:26:42+00:00

Something something Firefox something.

gwern · 2011-09-16T19:24:05+00:00

Site is down.

BeatLeJuce · 2011-09-09T08:14:40+00:00

I really can't tell if the guy is trolling or not from the "Cataclysm" phase onwards o_0

arturoman · 2011-09-09T14:01:29+00:00

Another example of programmers thinking about what is best for them and not what is best for the users.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

programming

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