New subject: Updates next steps

Friday, 23 April 2010

Do what thou wilt
shall  be the whole  of the Law.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: William Jon McCann <william.jon.mccann(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:02:47 -0400
Subject: Updates next steps
To: Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop
<desktop(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;

Hey folks,

We discussed this a bit on IRC yesterday but I wanted to bring it up
on the list too. (here McCann refers to the Desktop list)

Now that we have rough consensus that we should try to limit the
volume of "pointless" updates, what is next?

I propose we look at two things right away:

1. Limit the frequency of non-critical updates to once per week in
stable releases

2. Establish norms or rules that limit the types of changes in stable
releases to ensure the releases remain stable

A concrete example of the kind of thing that I think we should try to avoid:
Two days ago I installed updates for F12 (over a hundred random
updates) then yesterday I noticed a lot more udpates (40ish) that
included an update for vala 0.8.0 with the description "Update to new
major release 0.8.0".

Longer term, I'd like to see a more comprehensive plan similar to
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Desktop/Whiteboards/UpdateExperience but
we probably need to work towards that incrementally.

Thoughts?  What is the best way to accomplish these two things?

Jon
-- 
desktop mailing list
desktop(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop

my questions and concerns:

1. we do?
2. what constitutes 'pointless'?
3. shouldn't this be on the 'users' list? does it not affect other users?
4. how is 'critical' defined?
5. what is this 'stable release' ( as opposed to 'release' )?
6. what steps would be taken to ensure that this 'stability' does not
    interfere with 'incubate(ing) innovative new technologies'?
7. now we have proposal after proposal, trying to produce
    a "stable release" and insisting on imposing such a level
    of "stability" into Fedora's releases, that i fear the result
    would seriously interfere with the original goals of this fine
    distribution.

have been poorly addressed, or not at all.

instead of asking if these things _should_ be done,
(and they ultimately include, for example, limiting
updates to bugfixes and security patches) McCann
says:

" It is pretty clear that we want to make the user experience around
 updates better for our users - now we need to do it.  There will be
 people who don't agree (at least until we demonstrate it is better by
 actually doing it) but we need to do it anyway.

 If possible, I'd really like to keep the discussion in this thread
 related to ideation on how we can accomplish the two things I
 mentioned.  From that we can develop a proposal that includes the why."

where "we" means either:
"the people who are interested in designing and defining
the user experience of this desktop thing." or "the project"

i believe such  ill-designed and extreme (check the subsumed
proposals)*  proposals deserves your consideration.

* from Jesse Keating:
" > 2. Establish norms or rules that limit the types of changes in stable
...
 releases to ensure the releases remain stable

 I had started on a proposal that addresses this, or at least attempts to
 classify the types of updates we do, so that some rules could be layered
 on top of those types.

 https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Stable_Release_Updates_Proposal"

which page subsumes the Stable_release_updates_vision q.v.

ccharles zeitler

Love is the law, love under will.

Fwd: Updates next steps