plans for long term support releases?

[Thomas M Steenholdt]

Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> Thomas M Steenholdt <tmus at tmus.dk> wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> In my mind, something like this could be accomplished in several
>> ways. If backporting is too much work (I know it takes time) then
>> perhaps it could be done by following upstream releases like we do
>> today, but for a longer time.
> 
> One of the reasons /not/ to ugrade and wanting to stick with the same
> distribution release is precisely because new upstream releases break
> stuff...
> 
> Yes, GCC 4 is a /much/ better C++ compiler than 3 [OK, OK, the language 4
> accepts contains something that at least resembles C++, that cannot be said
> of 3], but many things that compiled and worked fine with 3 just won't
> build on 4 without /much/ work.
> 
> Yes, Python 2.6 is nicer than 2.5, but many packages break (remember? ;-)
> 
> Yes, PHP 5 is safer than 4, but websites built with 4 won't work OOB.
> 
> And a long etc. So the way out is backporting patches, or better backfixing
> (== finding out how to trigger the bug, figure out if it (or something
> similar) is present in the old version, fixing the bug, checking that this
> really fixes the problem and doesn't create new ones). Tedious, hard
> work. Sure, you'll find people eager to do it (mostly terminal masochists),
> you might be able to find people able to do it right (but they probably are
> much more excited by the idea of hacking on the latest&greatest). You won't
> find anybody willing to test the result (at least not enough to make a
> difference). So...
> 
> If it is /that/ important to somebody, they'll be willing to shell out for
> a long-term maintained distribution like RHEL (or band together and do the
> work). If not, they aren't really interested, more than an "it would be
> real nice if I did not have to upgrade Fedora each year or so"
> 

I'm aware of the work involved in maintaining packages, backporting 
fixes etc. And I agree completely that in the current setup, the fixes 
will probably not be tested properly. Also, it does not seem like 
something like this is desired for Fedora (at this point at least), and 
that's an acceptable answer to my inquiry too.

I only suggested that we thought about it, which a lot of people did. 
There are several reasons why we should NOT do it, so there's not much 
sense in leaving the "case" open.

Perhaps at a later point, it'll make sense to reevaluate. Now's just not 
the time.

> 
>> Perhaps the solution is to re-launch legacy in a more integrated
>> way?!? I heard the cut back, but I don't know how much.
> 
> AFAIU, it dried on the wine.

/Thomas