Fwd: KDE Frameworks Release Cycle

[Scott Kitterman]

On April 30, 2014 3:32:02 AM EDT, Mario Fux <kde-ml at unormal.org> wrote:
>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?

Since we release on a different schedule, with monthly KF5 releases, we'd all be interested in supporting different releases. 

I don't know what the Plasma release schedule/plan is.  Perhaps if they're on a longer cycle and can declare up front what KF5 version they are targeting, we could all aim at that? 

Scott K