Plasma LTS releases

[Ludwig Nussel]

Fabian Vogt schrieb:
> 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.

So far we are assuming that SLE sticks to the pattern of releasing
in the first half of the year. There is no reason to believe that
this changes for 15.2 at least due to external factors. So if we
likely get 15.2 in May 2020 which means EOL of 15.1 would be
November 2020.

>> 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 automatism of 15.2 version upgrading Qt. We're not going
to fork from SLE, so SLE needs good reasons of why to do that.
Upstream EOL is not necessarily an argument. There is a better
chance in SP2 though as every other service pack usually has bigger
feature updates.

> There is no planned release date yet, but I estimate the
> end of 2019/beginning of 2020.

If SLE sticks to the pattern, the submission deadline for it's
feature upgrades (ie base for Leap 15.2) would be in that time frame
you mentioned. For a Leap release in May an update of a component
like Plasma in February 2020 is still fine.

>> 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.

Yes. We do not necessarily need newer Plasma versions during the
life time of 15. We may be forced to due to SLE feature upgrades in
SP2 though, in case they affect KDE. I hope that SP2 in 15 won't be
as heavy as in 12 though. Hope dies last :-)

cu
Ludwig

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