Rolling release model philosophy (was Re: Anaconda is totally trashing the F18 schedule (was Re: f18: how to install into a LVM partitions (or RAID)))

[Kamil Paral]

> >* A release for general users with low volume of security fixes and
> >important bug fixes.
> >** Bug fixes would be pushed monthly and QA would be performed on
> >this monthly batch of updates.
>
> Some packages need more than bug fix updates (unless you are taking a
> very
> broad view of what a bug is). We haven't done a very good job of
> having
> a consistent interpretation with the current update policy. Giving
> the
> proposal below, this will be a more important issue than it is now.

You are right, some types of packages would deserve more frequent updates even if they are not just bugfixes. Typically end-user applications like Firefox or LibreOffice, if there is no major UI/functionality change. Fedora Stable is intended for conservative users, but it's still Fedora, so reasonable minor changes would be fine.

>
> >* Released every 18 months, supported for 18+2 months (2 months to
> >give people time to upgrade to the next Fedora Stable).
> >** Why 18 months? Because for general users it is annoying to
> >upgrade every year, but OTOH our package maintainers wouldn't
> >probably like supporting 2-year-old packages. 18 months is still an
> >increase from current 12 months of support, but if we stop
> >releasing two parallel stable releases, we can make the support
> >longer with the same energy spent.
>
> We are going to take a marketing hit doing this.

Probably yes.

But, to tell the truth, we're getting a lot of marketing by postpoing F18 as well. There might be a lot of other ways to do marketing.

>
> >** Just one stable release instead of two. Can anyone tell me a
> >compelling argument for having two stable releases (F16, F17) in
> >parallel? I don't see any. The current model probably evolved
> >because we wanted new software fast, but upgrading every 6 months
> >would discourage a lot of users. Let's be honest - yes, it will
> >contain old packages and yes, it is intended for conservative
> >users. For the other group we will have Fedora Rolling.
>
> We provide extra flexibility in letting users decide when they want
> to do
> upgrades to stay in support. It's not only letting them use a release
> for
> about a year if they want, but also to do the upgrade at a time where
> they
> can conveniently deal with any issues.

That's a good argument. Currently they have 7 months to do the upgrade. With my proposal, they have 2 months. Unless they want to run a system without security patches for some time. So maybe we could extend the time we provide security patches?

>
> >* More reliable upgrades, although less convenient for power users.
> >Instead of current way of often-broken system upgrades, our upgrade
> >tool would install a clean system, remount /home, and try to
> >install all GUI applications that the user had manually installed
> >in his previous system.
>
> This seems to be independent of the proposal to have only one stable
> release.

Right.

> This tool is still not going to be able to do magic and there will be
> config
> things that still need to be redone. Third party repos will still be
> an issue.

It's a clean installation, I don't think it needs any magic. Also third-party repos are not a problem, we just ignore them and they won't influence the new system. People will add them manually again once in 18 months.

> >** This process would also allow Anaconda devs to continuously work
> >on the installer and update it continuously with core system
> >changes. Currently they can't work on Rawhide because "Rawhide is
> >just broken". Fedora Rolling would allow them that.
>
> I don't think that is the issue. They work in branched because they
> don't
> have the man power to also be working in rawhide at the same time and
> since
> anaconda is sensitive to the version of other packages, they want to
> be
> developing against what's going to be in the next release.
>

Yes, but this would reduce the surprise moment when Fedora is being Branched and Anaconda team discovers that 1337 things changed in Rawhide since the last stable release.