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

[Bryan J. Smith]

Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info> 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 at fedoraproject.org>
> 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 at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***