What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

LWN has a look at Fedora Core Test 2 written by Ladislav Bodnar of 
distrowatch fame. It is a expanded view of distrowatch's weekly comments 
on Fedora Core Test 2.

http://lwn.net/Articles/167316/

A few comments for more information. The switch to a prolonged 
development cycle for Fedora Core 5 was specific to this release to 
accommodate major changes within the infrastructure such as the Anaconda 
changes. Anaconda, the defacto standard among Linux installers has gone 
into a major "interface surgery" in the words of Bodnar who has 
questioned the need for such a change. The need for such a change arises 
to accommodate many of the important new developments the project has 
brought forward. The switch to yum instead of up2date within Fedora, the 
formation of Fedora Extras as a complimentary default repository with 
over two thousand packages etc needed not just a interface change but a 
core Anaconda revamp in the form of a yum backend.  Better consistency 
of distribution upgrades and planned ability of Anaconda to use Fedora 
Extras and possibly any custom repository during installation time is a 
fairly major advantage. The streamlining of the interface is 
complimentary to this in my opinion.

Now why is the new applications such as Beagle, F-spot and Tomboy 
mentioned in the release announcement but not Mono specifically?. I 
believe the applications and the functionality improvements they bring 
into the release is much more important the underlying language it is 
written under which is why the inclusion of Mono is mentioned in the 
release notes but not in the release announcement.

The review is generally positive in note of other changes such as as the 
new security improvements(fstack-porter) written by Red Hat developer 
which was originally part of Fedora Core 4 and backported into the 
Fedora GCC compiler and now made upstream on the GCC 4.1 as the system 
compiler for Fedora Core 5. The new look and feel, GNOME 2.14,  Firefox 
1.5, Openoffice.org 1.01 Pup, package updater are some of the core 
positive things noted in the review. A few known issues are also mentioned.

Kudos to everyone involved in this release.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Hi!

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 05:23 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  [...]
>  A few comments for more information. The switch to a prolonged 
>  development cycle for Fedora Core 5 was specific to this release  
While we are at the topic already: This fact was badly communicated.
There seems to be a whole lot of confusion about the current Fedora
release cycle in the community -- for example the german
wikipedia-writers have a long discussion about it and nowhere can find a
*official* statement [*1] that the nine month cycle for FC5 was only a
exception:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Fedora_Core#6_Monate

It IMHO would be good if we would have a defined long term release cycle
just as Gnome has. And IMHO it should be in sync with gnome somehow
(just as Ubuntu has, too)[*2]. E.g. The plan for Fedora Core could be:
Always release two weeks after a major gnome release (this would be end
of March and end of September). Yeah, sometimes it could slip a week or
two if that is needed, but the plan for the version after that one
should not slip due to this.

Just my 2 cents.

CU
thl

[*1] -- yes, there must be a "nearly official" statement somewhere in
the archives of fedora-maintainers or fedora-devel -- I tried to find
it, but gave up after 10 minutes

[*2] -- Gnome releases every 6 month. RHEL releases round about every 18
Months, so a Fedora release every 6 month would probably fit with the
goals for Red Hat, too.
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 05:23 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>   
>
> >[...]
> >A few comments for more information. The switch to a prolonged 
> >development cycle for Fedora Core 5 was specific to this release 
> >    
> >
>
> While we are at the topic already: This fact was badly communicated.
> There seems to be a whole lot of confusion about the current Fedora
> release cycle in the community -- for example the german
> wikipedia-writers have a long discussion about it and nowhere can find a
> *official* statement [*1] that the nine month cycle for FC5 was only a
> exception:
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Fedora_Core#6_Monate
>   
>  
There was no official statement that the release cycle was permanently 
extended either. People just assumed that. Developers have been 
communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while 
now.

> It IMHO would be good if we would have a defined long term release
> cycle
> just as Gnome has. And IMHO it should be in sync with gnome somehow
> (just as Ubuntu has, too)[*2]. E.g. The plan for Fedora Core could be:
> Always release two weeks after a major gnome release (this would be end
> of March and end of September). Yeah, sometimes it could slip a week or
> two if that is needed, but the plan for the version after that one
> should not slip due to this.
>  
Fedora is not solely focussed on the desktop. Tying it up on the GNOME 
release schedule only makes sense if you are a solely concentrating on 
the desktop. Fedora Core is more of a general purpose operating system 
now. Any proposed change for that needs the buy-in from many of the core 
developers. That really isnt a discussion for marketing.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 15:31 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  >Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 05:23 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  >>[...]
>  >>A few comments for more information. The switch to a prolonged 
>  >>development cycle for Fedora Core 5 was specific to this release 
>  >While we are at the topic already: This fact was badly communicated.
>  >There seems to be a whole lot of confusion about the current Fedora
>  >release cycle in the community -- for example the german
>  >wikipedia-writers have a long discussion about it and nowhere can find a
>  >*official* statement [*1] that the nine month cycle for FC5 was only a
>  >exception:
>  >http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Fedora_Core#6_Monate
>  >  
>  >
>  There was no official statement that the release cycle was permanently 
>  extended either.  
Exactly. 

>  People just assumed that. 
Yeah -- but that our fault and not their.

>   Developers have been 
>  communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while 
>  now. 
Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.

>  >It IMHO would be good if we would have a defined long term
> release cycle
>  >just as Gnome has. And IMHO it should be in sync with gnome somehow
>  >(just as Ubuntu has, too)[*2]. E.g. The plan for Fedora Core could be:
>  >Always release two weeks after a major gnome release (this would be end
>  >of March and end of September). Yeah, sometimes it could slip a week or
>  >two if that is needed, but the plan for the version after that one
>  >should not slip due to this.
>  >
>  Fedora is not solely focussed on the desktop. 
Sure. But a defined long term release cycle has a lot of benefits --
look at Gnome.

>   Tying it up on the GNOME 
>  release schedule only makes sense if you are a solely concentrating on 
>  the desktop. 
No -- but if we sync up to the same schedule maybe gcc will sync to it,
too. Or xorg, kde. Or maybe even the kernel (okay, that's unlikely). 

>   Fedora Core is more of a general purpose operating system 
>  now. Any proposed change for that needs the buy-in from many of the core 
>  developers. That really isnt a discussion for marketing. 
Sure. But the reason why I replied to your initial mail in this thread
was that there was a lack of a defined statement about the Fedora
release cycle. And that's more a marketing problem afaics.

CU
thl  
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

"

There was no official statement that the release cycle was permanently 
>  extended either.  

Exactly. "

How do you propose to solve that?. Do press releases?


> >Fedora is not solely focussed on the desktop.
> >    
> >
>
> Sure. But a defined long term release cycle has a lot of benefits --
> look at Gnome.
>   
>  
Red Hat developers have been involved in the original decision to move 
over to a time based release structure. However there are differences 
between GNOME and FedoraGNOME is typically not consumed by users 
directly. . They can afford to do fixes in a .1 release. If you look at 
Fedora, there is a rough time based release but it is not rigid to 
accomodate various changes that come up in every development cycle.

> No -- but if we sync up to the same schedule maybe gcc will sync to
> it,
> too. Or xorg, kde. Or maybe even the kernel (okay, that's unlikely). 
>   
>  
You are talking about a scenario which is highly unlikely on the whole. 
It simply doesnt make any sense for many projects to switch into a six 
month release cycle.

> Sure. But the reason why I replied to your initial mail in this
> thread
> was that there was a lack of a defined statement about the Fedora
> release cycle. And that's more a marketing problem afaics.
>   
>  
I dont consider that as a documentation problem as such. One attempt to 
fix it is the weekly reports. 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Projects/WeeklyReports.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>   
>
> > Developers have been 
> >communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while 
> >now.
> >    
> >
>
> Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.
>   
>  
Depends on where you get the information from. For example, distrowatch 
corrected its previous misconception recently. 
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#1

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:03 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  Hi
>  
>  >  
>  >
>  >> Developers have been 
>  >>communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while 
>  >>now.
>  >Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.
>  > 
>  Depends on where you get the information from. For example, distrowatch 
>  corrected its previous misconception recently. 
>  http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#1 
That's not "official" -- the german wikipedia writers of the
"Fedora_Core" entry read it there as well but still are not convinced.
The last entry in the discussion is:
---
Ich lese da: "For Fedora Core 6, we should be going back to the more
regular 6-ish months." "Also eher weniger sicher. Warten wir doch
einfach mal ab, was da noch so folgt, zumal das eh nicht einmalig
gewesen sein kann, da FC4 auch schon später raus kam"
---
Roughly translated:
---
I read there: "For Fedora Core 6, we should be going back to the more
regular 6-ish months." Thus rather less surely.  Let's wait what
follows, particularly since that cannot have been unique, because FC4
also came already later"
---
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:03 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>   
>
> >Hi
> >
> >    
> >
> >> 
> >>
> >>      
> >>
> >>>Developers have been 
> >>>communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while 
> >>>now.
> >>>        
> >>>
> >>Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.
> >>
> >>      
> >>
> >Depends on where you get the information from. For example, distrowatch 
> >corrected its previous misconception recently. 
> >http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#1
> >    
> >
>
> That's not "official" -
>  
What do you consider official?. How do we communicate all the official 
information out there to make sure there isnt too many assumptions?

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 15:56 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  There was no official statement that the release cycle was
> permanently 
>  > extended either. 
>  >Exactly. "
>  How do you propose to solve that?. Do press releases? 
Not worth it IMHO -- a clarification on
http://fedora.redhat.com/About/schedule/
would suffice IMHO. A long term plan would even be better.
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:26 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  >Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:03 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  >>>>Developers have been 
>  >>>>communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while
>
>  >>>>now.
>  >>>Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.
>  >>Depends on where you get the information from. For example, distrowatch 
>  >>corrected its previous misconception recently. 
>  >>http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#1
>  >That's not "official" -
>  >
>  What do you consider official?. 
Me? If it is written somewhere on the fedora-webpages. A signed mail to
one of the mailinglists from a official person. A press-release.

But you should ask what is "official" for journalists or
wikipedia-writers. 

>   How do we communicate all the official 
>  information out there to make sure there isnt too many assumptions? 
At least we *should clarify* wrong or unclear assumptions in the
community if they are floating around like this one.

How? Red Hat magazine? fedora.redhat.com? Wiki probably is not the best
place because I suspect some people don't trust the informations there.
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> >>      
> >>
> >What do you consider official?.
> >    
> >
>
> Me? If it is written somewhere on the fedora-webpages. A signed mail to
> one of the mailinglists from a official person. A press-release.
>
> But you should ask what is "official" for journalists or
> wikipedia-writers. 
>
>   
>  
I am not sure whether journalists or wikipedia writers are picking up 
the notion of a permanent change release schedule. It has always been 
the case so far the the release schedule will change based on the 
release developments that is roughly not but not rigidly time based.

> > How do we communicate all the official 
> >information out there to make sure there isnt too many assumptions?
> >    
> >
>
> At least we *should clarify* wrong or unclear assumptions in the
> community if they are floating around like this one.
>
> How? Red Hat magazine? 
>  
I dont think writing a article exclusively about release changes in Red 
Hat Magazine is worthy.

> fedora.redhat.com?
>  
The schedule page already shows the current release schedule. The next 
schedule is undecided at this point

>  Wiki probably is not the best
> place because I suspect some people don't trust the informations there.
>   
>  
I am open to specific ideas.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:58 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  >> How do we communicate all the official 
>  >>information out there to make sure there isnt too many assumptions?
>  >At least we *should clarify* wrong or unclear assumptions in the
>  >community if they are floating around like this one.
>  >How? Red Hat magazine? 
>  I dont think writing a article exclusively about release changes in Red 
>  Hat Magazine is worthy. 
Sure, but we have a Fedora Status page there -- one sentence there and
the whole situation is clarified.

>  >fedora.redhat.com?
>  >
>  The schedule page already shows the current release schedule. The next 
>  schedule is undecided at this point 
And that's part of the problem IMHO.

CU
thl
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Bryan Smith]

Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt; wrote:
>  And that's part of the problem IMHO. 
As an outsider, I disagree.  Things get done when they get done. 
Fedora Core's development continues to show nothing but _disciplined_
software engineering.

People who can't see that are just nay-sayers.  But with continued
results, many former nay-sayers have been silenced since Fedora Core
1.  And many of them prefer the greater Fedora Project over what Red
Hat Linux was before.

"Rahul Sundaram" <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  I am not sure whether journalists or wikipedia writers are
>  picking up the notion of a permanent change release schedule.
>  It has always been the case so far the the release schedule
>  will change based on the release developments that is roughly
>  not but not rigidly time based 
I know *EXACTLY* why that occured.  There was this commonly believed
falicy that Fedora Core was "epoch-based" and released _exactly_
every 4-6 months _regardless_ of testing.  I don't know how many
times I've had to re-explain the Development-Test-Core 1:1 from the
prior Rawhide-Beta-Release model.

But now that Fedora Core 3 and 4 were around 7 months (IIRC) and
Fedora Core 5 looks to be 9 months, people now assumed that "oh, I
guess it's not epoch-based."  From there, people were looking for
explainations.  Even I have to admit that I started assuming the
release cycle was looking more like every 7-9 months.

That was not only because Fedora Core 5 took 9 months, but Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 was really based on Fedora Core 2, with only one
additional release, Fedora Core 3, before RHEL 4.  Fedora Core 1 was
clearly more of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 lineage (sans GCC 3.3
instead of GCC 3.2).  That would mean only 2 "equivalent
GLibC/GCC/kernel" Fedora Core releases before the 18-month Red Hat
Enterprise Linux release.

In any case, I think it's time to "update" the page with the
differences between Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux to
reflect some of these REAL results through Fedora Core 5.  Such as
the releases being 6-9 months apart, and not 4-6.  And especially
talk about the Development-Test-Release model and that it's NOT
released UNTIL stable.

A lot of pundits (mostly ex-Red Hat Linux users who knew nothing else
until they felt "left behind" with Fedora Core, and have never used
Fedora Core) hit Red Hat, and refuse to read anything that is not
under redhat.com.  They are the generators of most of the non-sense
you read, and refuse to even consider the actual reality of all the
proven Fedora Core releases to date.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith(a)ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------
*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Jesse Keating]

On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 10:25 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  
>  While we are at the topic already: This fact was badly communicated.
>  There seems to be a whole lot of confusion about the current Fedora
>  release cycle in the community -- for example the german
>  wikipedia-writers have a long discussion about it and nowhere can find a
>  *official* statement [*1] that the nine month cycle for FC5 was only a
>  exception:
>  http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Fedora_Core#6_Monate 
I'm confused.  Wasn't our original and still official release schedule
every 6-9 months?  Hasn't every release thus far fallen in that time
frame?  Won't FC5 fall in that time frame (albeit on the far side)?
Where is the confusion coming from?

-- 
Jesse Keating RHCE      (geek.j2solutions.net)
Fedora Legacy Team      (www.fedoralegacy.org)
GPG Public Key          (geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub)

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Bryan Smith]

Jesse Keating <jkeating(a)j2solutions.net&gt; wrote:
>  I'm confused.  Wasn't our original and still official
> release
>  schedule every 6-9 months?
>  ...
>  Where is the confusion coming from? 
It was a combination of things.

One was the confusing, albeit understandable (for legal reasons),
messages from Red Hat that led to a _lot_ of speculation.  There were
about 10x as many people and projects just bitching and moaning why
they couldn't [ab]use the Red Hat(R) trademark anymore.

Two, and more relevant, were pages like the "Which Linux is Right For
Me?" and similar that listed only a 4-6 month development time for
Fedora Core.  It also had all sorts of other comments that would
really suggest a lot of things that the nay-sayers just ate up.

It was very difficult to deal with that when it was right there on
Red Hat's site.

-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith(a)ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------
*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5Test2(LWN): Some comments)

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>  Fedora is not solely focussed on the desktop. Tying it up on the
>  GNOME release schedule only makes sense if you are a solely
>  concentrating on the desktop. Fedora Core is more of a general
>  purpose operating system now. Any proposed change for that needs
>  the buy-in from many of the core developers. That really isnt a
>  discussion for marketing. 
It should then be possible to update GNOME if a new release comes
during Fedora's lifespan (and while the previous release is not moved
to Legacy yet), just as KDE has been updated from 3.4 to 3.5

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5Test2(LWN): Some comments)

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

>  Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:26 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>
> > Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> >
> >> Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:03 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
> >>
> >>>>> Developers have been communicating that this release
> >>>>> cycle was only for FC5 for quite a while now.
> >>>>
> >>>> Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.
> >>>
> >>> Depends on where you get the information from. For example,
> >>> distrowatch corrected its previous misconception recently.
> >>> http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#1
> >>
> >> That's not "official" -
> >>
> > What do you consider official?.
>
>
>  Me? If it is written somewhere on the fedora-webpages. A signed
>  mail to one of the mailinglists from a official person. A
>  press-release.
>
>  But you should ask what is "official" for journalists or
>  wikipedia-writers.
>
> > How do we communicate all the official information out there to
> > make sure there isnt too many assumptions?
>
>
>  At least we *should clarify* wrong or unclear assumptions in the
>  community if they are floating around like this one.
>
>  How? Red Hat magazine? fedora.redhat.com? Wiki probably is not the
>  best place because I suspect some people don't trust the
>  informations there. 
I agree... That's (amongst others) the purpose of the fedora-announce
mailing list, is it not?
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> =5Gvn
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development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5Test2(LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Gain Paolo Mureddu wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>
>   
>
> >Fedora is not solely focussed on the desktop. Tying it up on the
> >GNOME release schedule only makes sense if you are a solely
> >concentrating on the desktop. Fedora Core is more of a general
> >purpose operating system now. Any proposed change for that needs
> >the buy-in from many of the core developers. That really isnt a
> >discussion for marketing.
> >    
> >
>
> It should then be possible to update GNOME if a new release comes
> during Fedora's lifespan (and while the previous release is not moved
> to Legacy yet), just as KDE has been updated from 3.4 to 3.5
>
>   
>  
Thats what is already happening. Look at the planned inclusion of GNOME 
2.14 in FC5


-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5Test2(LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> I agree... That's (amongst others) the purpose of the
> fedora-announce
> mailing list, is it not?
>  
A development plan for every release includes many changes. 
Fedora-announce list is not the place to announce each of these changes 
in my opinion.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> Jesse Keating <jkeating(a)j2solutions.net&gt; wrote:
>   
>
> >I'm confused.  Wasn't our original and still official release
> >schedule every 6-9 months?
> >...
> >Where is the confusion coming from?
> >    
> >
>
> It was a combination of things.
>
> One was the confusing, albeit understandable (for legal reasons),
> messages from Red Hat that led to a _lot_ of speculation.  There were
> about 10x as many people and projects just bitching and moaning why
> they couldn't [ab]use the Red Hat(R) trademark anymore.
>
> Two, and more relevant, were pages like the "Which Linux is Right For
> Me?" and similar that listed only a 4-6 month development time for
> Fedora Core.  It also had all sorts of other comments that would
> really suggest a lot of things that the nay-sayers just ate up.
>
> It was very difficult to deal with that when it was right there on
> Red Hat's site.
>   
>  
Which ones were wrong specifically?


-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core5Test2(LWN):Some comments)

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

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Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>  Gain Paolo Mureddu wrote:
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> Fedora is not solely focussed on the desktop. Tying it up on
> >> the GNOME release schedule only makes sense if you are a solely
> >> concentrating on the desktop. Fedora Core is more of a general
> >> purpose operating system now. Any proposed change for that
> >> needs the buy-in from many of the core developers. That really
> >> isnt a discussion for marketing.
> >>
> >
> >
> > It should then be possible to update GNOME if a new release comes
> > during Fedora's lifespan (and while the previous release is not
> > moved to Legacy yet), just as KDE has been updated from 3.4 to
> > 3.5
> >
> >
> >
>  Thats what is already happening. Look at the planned inclusion of
>  GNOME 2.14 in FC5
>
>  
Yes, but will there be GNOME 2.14 packages for FC4 while it still is
"current" and not moved to Legacy, like what was done with KDE? I
mean, the common reason given to NOT provide GNOME update packages
usually is the ammount of system files or interactions that GNOME has,
I wonder if KDE does not have such issues, wouldn't it then be a
problem with GNOME's design, then?

I totally LOVE GNOME and use it over KDE, but certainly I can't
understand Red Hat and Fedora stand on it. I mean, RHEL 4 users will
not be able to use a newer GNOME other than 2.6 (or was it 2.8?) until
RHEL 5 with GNOME 2.1x.

I don't mean to rant over this, is just that I don't seem to fully
understand why it is not made that way... Has KDE already moved into
Extras? Because in that should free up some hands to improve on GNOME
(or am I getting this totally wrong?).

Sorry if my comments don't make any sense to anyone but me.
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development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core5Test2(LWN):Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> >
> >
> >    
> >
> Yes, but will there be GNOME 2.14 packages for FC4 while it still is
> "current" and not moved to Legacy, like what was done with KDE?
>  
Unlikely.

>  I
> mean, the common reason given to NOT provide GNOME update packages
> usually is the ammount of system files or interactions that GNOME has,
> I wonder if KDE does not have such issues, wouldn't it then be a
> problem with GNOME's design, then?
>   
>  
Thats a question for the development lists.

> I totally LOVE GNOME and use it over KDE, but certainly I can't
> understand Red Hat and Fedora stand on it. I mean, RHEL 4 users will
> not be able to use a newer GNOME other than 2.6 (or was it 2.8?) until
> RHEL 5 with GNOME 2.1x.
>
> I don't mean to rant over this, is just that I don't seem to fully
> understand why it is not made that way...
>  
It would be better to ask in the development lists or the maintainer.

>  Has KDE already moved into
> Extras?
>  
No it has not. Such plans are very much undecided.

>  Because in that should free up some hands to improve on GNOME
> (or am I getting this totally wrong?).
>
> Sorry if my comments don't make any sense to anyone but me.
>
>   
>  
 From the development as well as user perspective, what applies to 
package X does not always apply to package Y.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New inFedoraCore5Test2(LWN):Some comments)

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

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Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>  Hi
>
> > Yes, but will there be GNOME 2.14 packages for FC4 while it still
> > is "current" and not moved to Legacy, like what was done with
> > KDE?
> >
>  Unlikely. 
This is exactly what I don't understand, would the same apply should
Fedora be based on QT and KDE for those packages too, then?

> > I mean, the common reason given to NOT provide GNOME update
> > packages usually is the ammount of system files or interactions
> > that GNOME has, I wonder if KDE does not have such issues,
> > wouldn't it then be a problem with GNOME's design, then?
> >
> >
>  Thats a question for the development lists. 
I guess I'll post this on the desktop mailing list rather than the
main devel list, as it is a direct desktop issue more than a
distro-wide issue (well... mostly).

>  It would be better to ask in the development lists or the
>  maintainer.
>
> > Has KDE already moved into Extras?
> >
>  No it has not. Such plans are very much undecided. 
Ahh, I read about this discussion som weeks ago, and I was kind of
surprised, actually.

> > Because in that should free up some hands to improve on GNOME (or
> > am I getting this totally wrong?).
> >
> > Sorry if my comments don't make any sense to anyone but me.
> >
> >
> >
>  From the development as well as user perspective, what applies to
>  package X does not always apply to package Y. 
I understand that's not always the case, is just that the recent move
to KDE 3.5 and no next GNOME packages got me thinking. That's all.

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development cycle (Was: Re: What's New inFedoraCore5Test2(LWN):Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Gain Paolo Mureddu wrote:

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>
> Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>
>   
>
> >Hi
> >
> >    
> >
> >>Yes, but will there be GNOME 2.14 packages for FC4 while it still
> >>is "current" and not moved to Legacy, like what was done with
> >>KDE?
> >>
> >>      
> >>
> >Unlikely.
> >    
> >
>
> This is exactly what I don't understand, would the same apply should
> Fedora be based on QT and KDE for those packages too, then?
>  
Fedora Core KDE packages are maintained by a single developer and is 
generally more monolithic than Fedora Core GNOME packages. It is upto 
the maintainer to determine whether the updates can go into a already 
existing version of Fedora Core or whether its too intrusive for an update.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's NewinFedoraCore5Test2(LWN):Somecomments)

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

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Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>  Fedora Core KDE packages are maintained by a single developer and
>  is generally more monolithic than Fedora Core GNOME packages. It is
>  upto the maintainer to determine whether the updates can go into a
>  already existing version of Fedora Core or whether its too
>  intrusive for an update.
>  
I'm aware of this. But as you said, I'd better ask to the right list.
Thanks anyway to take the time and answer to my inquiries.
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development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:58 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>   
>
> >>>How do we communicate all the official 
> >>>information out there to make sure there isnt too many assumptions?
> >>>        
> >>>
> >>At least we *should clarify* wrong or unclear assumptions in the
> >>community if they are floating around like this one.
> >>How? Red Hat magazine? 
> >>      
> >>
> >I dont think writing a article exclusively about release changes in Red 
> >Hat Magazine is worthy.
> >    
> >
>
> Sure, but we have a Fedora Status page there -- one sentence there and
> the whole situation is clarified.
>   
>  
Feel free to write a note  to fedoranews.org weekly. Fedora status 
report is just a edited version of that

>   
>
> >>fedora.redhat.com?
> >>
> >>      
> >>
> >The schedule page already shows the current release schedule. The next 
> >schedule is undecided at this point
> >    
> >
>
> And that's part of the problem IMHO.
>  
You havent explained why.

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 10:14 -0800 schrieb Jesse Keating:
>  On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 10:25 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  > 
>  > While we are at the topic already: This fact was badly communicated.
>  > There seems to be a whole lot of confusion about the current Fedora
>  > release cycle in the community -- for example the german
>  > wikipedia-writers have a long discussion about it and nowhere can find a
>  > *official* statement [*1] that the nine month cycle for FC5 was only a
>  > exception:
>  > http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Fedora_Core#6_Monate
>  
>  I'm confused.  Wasn't our original and still official release schedule
>  every 6-9 months?  
Now I'm confused. Wasn't the original and still official release
schedule "Fedora Core is released two or tree times a year"? (that would
be 4-6 months)

Seems it still is:
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
Release Interval Fedora: 4-6 months

http://fedora.redhat.com/about/objectives.html
10. Produce robust releases approximately 2-3 times per year [...]

>   Hasn't every release thus far fallen in that time
>  frame? 
Up to FC3 is was round about in the time frame:

FC1: 5 November 2003
 195 days till
FC2: 18 May 2004
 174 days till
FC3: 8 November 2004
 217 days till 
FC4: 13 June 2005
 275 days till
FC5: planed for 15 March 2006

6 Months: ~182 days

>    Won't FC5 fall in that time frame (albeit on the far side)?
No.

>  Where is the confusion coming from? 
Because nobody ever officially wrote down that the nine months time
frame of FC5 was a exception. And because we have no long term plan for
FC6 and FC7. I know that Suse and Ubuntu always release around March
(+/-1 some weeks) and September (+/- some weeks). Fedora is
unpredictable.

Say you are a journalist and want to tests distributions. You'll do it
in April and November, when Ubuntu and Suse are new -- that fedora then
maybe is already some months old and has an older Gnome is not your
fault. 

BTW, I know some people that switched to Ubuntu or openSuse because they
had Gnome 2.12 (FC4 has 2.10). Ridiculous IMHO, but some people are like
this. ;-) 

BTW, I have no problem when a release slips 2 or 4 weeks due to some
issues. But later releases shouldn't be effected due to this. So a
"Fedora releases normally at the end of March and End of September"
would be a really good idea IMHO.

-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;

development cycle (Was: Re: What's New in Fedora Core 5 Test2 (LWN): Some comments)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 10:14 -0800 schrieb Jesse Keating:
>   
>
> >On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 10:25 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> >    
> >
> >>While we are at the topic already: This fact was badly communicated.
> >>There seems to be a whole lot of confusion about the current Fedora
> >>release cycle in the community -- for example the german
> >>wikipedia-writers have a long discussion about it and nowhere can find a
> >>*official* statement [*1] that the nine month cycle for FC5 was only a
> >>exception:
> >>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Fedora_Core#6_Monate
> >>      
> >>
> >I'm confused.  Wasn't our original and still official release schedule
> >every 6-9 months? 
> >    
> >
>
> Now I'm confused. Wasn't the original and still official release
> schedule "Fedora Core is released two or tree times a year"? (that would
> be 4-6 months)
>
>   
>  
This guideline still is true.

> Seems it still is:
> http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
> Release Interval Fedora: 4-6 months
>   
>  
That page is outdated and is not linked from the current website 
http://fedora.redhat.com. The entire website is scheduled for a 
transition in http://fedoraproject.org.

> http://fedora.redhat.com/about/objectives.html
> 10. Produce robust releases approximately 2-3 times per year [...]
>   
>  
See above.

> >Where is the confusion coming from?
> >    
> >
>
> Because nobody ever officially wrote down that the nine months time
> frame of FC5 was a exception.
>  
The development plans were discussed in fedora-devel list at the start 
of the release. Developers involved did state that it was the release 
cycle change was intended only for FC5. Thats as official as it gets.


>  And because we have no long term plan for
> FC6 and FC7. 
>  
We decide it when the development work starts. This is how releases are 
planned for almost every software out there.

> I know that Suse and Ubuntu always release around March
> (+/-1 some weeks) and September (+/- some weeks). Fedora is
> unpredictable.
>   
>  
Two to three releases as a rough guideline pretty much stands still with 
Fedora Core 5 being an exception.

"BTW, I know some people that switched to Ubuntu or openSuse because they

had Gnome 2.12 (FC4 has 2.10). Ridiculous IMHO, but some people are like
this.  ;-)  "

There were various third party repositories providing GNOME 2.12 packages in FC4. People
interested can always work on a backports repository for Fedora. Trying to providing all
the latest packages all the time is a job for the development release and not the GA
release in my opinion. Fedora development plans should be decided on the basis of the
project goals and the developers involved and not to try and win who is the first race. 




> BTW, I have no problem when a release slips 2 or 4 weeks due to some
> issues. But later releases shouldn't be effected due to this. So a
> "Fedora releases normally at the end of March and End of September"
> would be a really good idea IMHO.
>   
>  
If you want to discuss how to do all the changes we did within Fedora 
Core 5 development especially the major infrastructure changes such as 
Anaconda, modular Xorg and new GCC as system compiler within the same 
release schedule as the previous releases feel free to start a 
discussion in the fedora-devel list. Considering the major work 
involved, I dont see a way it could have been crammed into a 6 month 
release cycle. What is the problem with the current release model of 
doing a public non-rigid time based releases?

-- 
Rahul 

Fedora Bug Triaging - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

"Official" communications

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

We're having a FF board meeting tomorrow.  This topic -- "official 
communications" -- will come up.  Will keep you posted.

--g

---------------------------------------------------------------
Greg DeKoenigsberg || Fedora Foundation || fedoraproject.org
Be an Ambassador || http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors
---------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

>  Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:26 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  > Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>  > >Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 16:03 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  > >>>>Developers have been 
>  > >>>>communicating that this release cycle was only for FC5 for quite a
> while 
>  > >>>>now.
>  > >>>Yeah, and it seems that was not enough.
>  > >>Depends on where you get the information from. For example, distrowatch 
>  > >>corrected its previous misconception recently. 
>  > >>http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#1
>  > >That's not "official" -
>  > >
>  > What do you consider official?.
>  
>  Me? If it is written somewhere on the fedora-webpages. A signed mail to
>  one of the mailinglists from a official person. A press-release.
>  
>  But you should ask what is "official" for journalists or
>  wikipedia-writers. 
>  
>  >  How do we communicate all the official 
>  > information out there to make sure there isnt too many assumptions?
>  
>  At least we *should clarify* wrong or unclear assumptions in the
>  community if they are floating around like this one.
>  
>  How? Red Hat magazine? fedora.redhat.com? Wiki probably is not the best
>  place because I suspect some people don't trust the informations there.
>  -- 
>  Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info&gt;
>  
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>