LinuxPlanet.com brought up a good debate if Ubuntu needs a longer release schedule. Ubuntu releases a new version every six months and a LTS or Long Term Support version every two years. Here’s my take on it. Like a little kid in a toy store, I always get excited when a new version of Ubuntu comes out. I’ve gone so far as even upgrading my desktop to a Release Candidate prior to the announcement.
Along with the excitement comes disappointment. Twice, I’ve had to revert to the previous versions due to bugs and problems with the latest Ubuntu release. The bugs are not always fixed in the first few days. Sometimes it takes months. At the moment, I’m still running 9.04. So, I’ll wait a few months before moving to 9.11. Dell and other hardware vendors also practice the same. Dell currently sells Ubuntu 9.04 versions on their website.
So, what do I recommend. I recommend Ubuntu switch to one a year release schedule. I know it seems like a long time between releases, but six months goes by really fast. If the development team takes their time to work out bugs and do more testing, then Ubuntu can really focus on delivering a great product with every release. Yearly is not as taxing as six months. A yearly release will also work hand in hand with the LTS version. It will be every other LTS release instead of 3 releases for every LTS release.
Or just keep the current 6 months release. x.04 is called release and x.10 is called beta.
I think Ubuntu might choose a short release cycle on purpose to get a maximum of “beta” testers.
One is beta and the other an official release. Sound like a yearly release to me.
Your proposal will make things worse, not better. Lengthening the schedule will just mean that the development branch will be “wide open” for longer and will have more divergences and nastier bugs that will need to be fixed before release. And they probably won’t have much more time to fix those, so things will be worse. The two major time factors that matter are 1) the delta between freeze and release. 2) how long it has been since wide release. #1 can be increased, but the trade off there is that the distribution will be further behind on release day. But there’s nothing you can do about #2. Some bugs are not going to be found until wide release, no matter what. So don’t upgrade mission critical systems until there’s been some shakeout period.
I agree with you on bugs that surface once it released to the general public. There is not much you can do about that. You can limit it somehow by having a longer testing period, which is exactly my argument. As far as having more time that it will bring nastier bugs and more divergences to the development branch, I think the development team can do things such as, locking down the number of features, reducing the bells and whistles, that are introduced for each release. The focus should be more on quality, functionality and the user interface.
Ubuntu already has tried to accommodate users who want more stability with the LTS releases every two years. You do not HAVE to upgrade. People who want stability should stick with what is working. Those who are more adventurous can upgrade with each release.
All lengthening the release schedule would accomplish is to drive users who want the latest and greatest to other distributions. Ubuntu’s competition is not Debian or PCLinuxOS which pride themselves on stability, but Fedora, openSuSE and Mandriva which have short release schedules and pride themselves on pushing the envelope. Have you checked Distrowatch lately? The only distro in the top 5 except those mentioned previously is Mint and it is Ubuntu based. Not one distro with a long release schedule is in the top ten. It would seem that lengthening the schedule is a recipe for obscurity.
They do not need to lengthen the schedule. They just need to do a better job. You can help by running the alphas and betas instead of whining about bugs. It takes lots of testers to report bugs so that they can be squashed.
LinuxCanuck, Thanks for your comments and opinion. You have valid and excellent points as to why Ubuntu needs to stay with the current release schedule. But, I respectfully disagree with you, that having a six month release schedule is essential to staying on top. In my opinion, having a quality product is still the number one reason why people choose a particular distribution over another. I will add that the best distribution is the one that works for the individual user. It doesn’t have to be the most popular. I’m thankful that there are many distro choices. Ubuntu just happens to be a distro most people gravitate towards for obvious reasons. I think we all want a distro with minimum bugs. To me that’s not whining at all, just merely wishing as well as prodding development teams to do a better job. As far as getting involved is concerned, many people including me are already involved in testing and reporting bugs.