On Thursday, March 07, 2013 11:52:40 AM Robie Basak wrote: > On Wed, Mar 06, 2013 at 07:34:55AM -0800, Allison Randal wrote: > > Also remember that, as the idea currently stands, the tiny set of > > "enthusiasts" are the only people who will get updated versions of > > applications. The majority of users will have a stale experience, and no > > reasonable alternative. > > To expand on this "stale experience", I think there's a whole separate > important class of users. These are users who otherwise would use the > LTS, but need some particular feature or version of some program that is > newer than the LTS. > > These users aren't necessarily self-selecting; anyone at any point may > find himself in this class. I certainly have. Before I worked for > Canonical I generally used six-monthly releases, but only updated when I > needed or wanted something specific, upgrading through multiple releases > at a time. > > Another example: I found that some particular wireless card didn't work > except in the latest 6-monthly release. So I put my mother onto that > until the next LTS was released. Here, I wanted to use the LTS but was > unable, so I put her on a supported release that didn't change under her > until an LTS was available. > > I think a rolling release would mostly serve this class of user, except > perhaps in environments where multiple people want to be on the same > release (eg. they are developing against a framework for which they need > a newer version than the LTS). > > Backports and PPAs could also help solve this for some specific cases, > but in general I think we need far more PPAs and backports for this to > work. The problem is that the group of users who need this often aren't > in a position to do the backport themselves, so it doesn't happen.
This is exactly the case that backports are for. I don't think users who want a generally stable experience, but need a thing or two newer are at all candidates for running the development release. Scott K -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
