Plasma LTS releases

[Fabian Vogt]

Hi,

Am Mittwoch, 17. Oktober 2018, 17:32:42 CEST schrieb Jonathan Riddell:
> Hola distros, we're scheduling the Plasma releases for 2019 and
> wondering what is best to use with the LTSs.  Plasma 5.12 LTS was
> released in February 2018 and 5.8 LTS in October 2016.
> 
> Does anyone use Plasma 5.12 LTS?

we're using Plasma 5.12 in openSUSE Leap 15.0 currently and will continue to do
so for Leap 15.1 at least (Qt 5.9 LTS). So having support until the EOL of 15.1
would be useful, which is likely around July 2020.

> Would you use 5.12 releases made at 6 monthly intervals?  Or any other
> suggestions?

The most important aspect of LTS is for us that the Plasma/5.12 branches are
maintained and bug reports are taken seriously.
Having regular tarballs with included translation updates is nice, but not
strictly necessary. So whatever the 5.12 release plan will be is fine for us.

> Does anyone have an opinion when the next LTS should be?
>
> Qt 5.12 LTS is due out this November.

The earliest we would be able to ship a new LTS version of Plasma is in
Leap 15.2, which is planned to jump to Qt 5.12 LTS.
There is no planned release date yet, but I estimate the
end of 2019/beginning of 2020.

> A similar 18 month LTS cycle would mean Plasma 5.17 in October 2019
> but 18 months is quite short for an LTS cycle.

As long as Plasma 5.12 is supported (and working on Qt 5.12), we can keep
shipping it on Leap 15.2 as well. Then we could either jump to the next
Plasma LTS with Leap 15.3 (end of 2020?) if it supports Qt 5.12, or ship
Plasma 5.12 until the EOL of Leap 15, so ~2022.

Thanks,
Fabian

> Jonathan