On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Allison Randal <alli...@canonical.com> wrote: > On 12/13/2011 12:11 AM, James Freer wrote: >> After reading the following posts i wanted to raise the release issue. >> It seems that staff are under a lot of pressure to deliver the 6 >> month releases as well as LTS. I've been using Ubuntu for about 5 yrs >> and it seems that quality varies between releases likely due to the >> pressure staff are under. >> >> Would it not be better for all to produce an annual version that's >> allowed time for testing and bug fixing. LTS is ok but second year and >> one is starting to find quite a few apps that have been updated and a >> six month release simply doesn't give adequate time for staff. If >> you're wondering what i do... i'm an april updater > > A release cycle that's twice as long doesn't really give you more time > to test changes, it just gives you twice as many changes to test. And it > makes some kinds of changes much more difficult, because they need to be > staged over multiple releases for a smooth transition. > > Here's a good post (short): > http://jroller.com/thuss/entry/there_are_pros_and_cons > > But if you have time, I recommend reading Martin Michlmayr's full > Doctoral dissertation. > http://www.cyrius.com/publications/michlmayr-phd.html > > From the conclusion: > ========== > In contrast to traditional software development which is feature-driven, > the goal of time based release management is to produce high quality > releases according to a specific release interval. This dissertation has > shown that feature based release management in FOSS projects is often > associated with lack of planning, which leads to problems, such as > delays and low levels of quality. > [...] > Time based releases are associated with two factors that act as > important coordination mechanisms: > > 1. Regularity: the production of releases according to a specific > interval allows projects to create regular reference points which show > contributors what kind of changes other members of the project have > made. Regularity also contributes to familiarity with the release > process, and it leads to more disciplined processes. > > 2. Schedules: by using time rather than features as the orientation for > a release, planning becomes possible in voluntary projects. Time based > projects can create schedules which describes important deadlines and > which contains dependency information between different work items and > actors. > > Together, these mechanism reduce the degree of active coordination > required in a project. Developers can work on self-assigned work items > independently and with the help of the schedule integrate them into the > project in time for the release. As such, the time based release > strategy is a means of dealing with the complexity found in > geographically distributed volunteer projects with hundreds of contributors. > ========== > > Allison
Allison... WOW I really do appreciate your reply. I didn't fully understand time based releases and should really have done some research... all seemed 'above my head'. I have downloaded Martins' dissertation but it's going to take me a few days to 'read and digest'. thanks james -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss