Synchronized releases between upstream and downstream
26 May 2008, 01:18
Anyone relatively following the FOSS community must have heard of the little disagreement about synchronized distro and upstream releases.
In a nutshell, Mark Shuttleworth wants distributors and upstream (kernel, the two big desktop environments, X.org, firefox and OpenOffice mostly) to do releases in a synced 6 months manner.
Arguments are around helping bug smashing and knowing when to put focus on QA and testing for upstream and for distros this would help them work together better and increase quality (again).
Some people have been very vocal about their opposition.
Well, I’m starting to be a little tired of people losing their time and energies to discuss this matter. To me, on the technical side, with a good VCS (and people knowing how to use it), a respected trunk/ and good testing policies I don’t see why upstream are against that. For example, when the distros are ready they said: “Here’s the revision we will use” and upstream could branch it and only maintain big bug fixes in that branch for a given release of each distro. I tend to think it is more complicated right now and could be a time saver for developers.
Another big thing on the marketing side of things is that for an outsider (someone who doesn’t dig free software or linux in particular) this would be less confusing as he would hear: “Linux did his semi-annual +1 release and things looks great!”.
Please note that I have never participated in any of the big upstream projects aside from (some) bug reporting so I might be wrong (read probably wrong).
But still, in the end, why not try it for a year or two and if it doesn’t work we could always go back to how things work right now. What could we lose by trying that?
Edit: Ars Technica has an interesting article on the topic also.
p.s.: Incidentally I just completed my first year as a blogger. Hurray!
— Olivier Bilodeau
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Animation Art on Public Walls 2007 a good year for the linux kernel