Fwd: KDE Frameworks Release Cycle

[Mario Fux]

Am Mittwoch, 30. April 2014, 04.20:21 schrieb Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez 
Meyer:

Morning

> > >For Ubuntu I can use the Firefox example. So can you explain why is KF5
> > >different than firefox?
> > 
> > Firefox (and Chromium too) are handled like no other packages in the
> > archive.  It's the best known (to average computer users) FOSS brand.
> > There's not much choice but to ship it and given the combination of
> > library bundling and the presence of security fixes in essentially every
> > release there's no realistic choice but to eat releases whole (despite
> > viewing the necessity as being highly distasteful).  Canonical has also
> > funded significant engineering resources to maintain Ubuntu Firefox
> > packages and do extensive regression testing.
> > 
> > None of the above is relevant to KF5.
> > 
> > If I were to ask for the kind of update policy Ubuntu has for Firefox, I
> > am pretty sure it would get laughed out of the room.  I've gotten
> > exceptions approved for quite a number of packages, so I think I have a
> > reasonable basis to form an opinion on what's likely to be approved.
> > 
> > The KF5 plan amounts to "Non-rolling distros: you're on your own."
> 
> Debian will be in the exact same position. Firefox and Chromium are just
> good examples of what to do to get your downstream unhappy and get your
> users non- stable experiences.
> 
> The result will be that we will need to freeze at some point and do our
> best to keep up with patches for stable releases. Or maybe even drop KF5
> for stable releases :-/
> 
> I don't know how other major distros with focus in stability work, but I
> think they will be more or less in the same position (I'm thinking in Red
> Hat, Centos, Suse and others here, but I might be wrong).

I might be to naive but what about something like an LTS for KF5. A branch 
where all the distros and some KF5 hackers backports fixes and promise to do 
this for 1, 2 or more years? I even think that other people and groups could 
be interested in this as e.g. Calligra who seems historically to be more 
conservative about kdelibs/KF5 minimum requirements...

I see Kevin's arguments and the ones of the distros. So maybe finding a middle 
ground?

Best regards
Mario