Fwd: KDE Frameworks Release Cycle

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, April 30, 2014 11:35:54 Àlex Fiestas wrote:
> On Tuesday 29 April 2014 19:23:07 Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > For non-rolling distros, at some point you have to stop and release. A mix
> > of new features and bug fixes aren't going to be allowed in.
> > 
> > We (Kubuntu) have been delivering KDE SC point releases as post-release
> > updates to our users for most (maybe all) KDE4 releases. That's over with
> > KF5.
> > 
> > We'll, I guess, have to settle for cherry picking fixes and doing our
> > best.
> 
> You might not know this but most developers don't do proper testing in the
> stable branches because the cost of having master and stable environments
> and doing testing in both branches for each fix is too much, we simply
> don't have the manpower for that.
> 
> History has shown this maaaany times, we have done point releases that were
> horrible quality-wise because nobody was testing them. The stable branches
> have virtually no users.
> 
> I have been told by you (at UDS) and by many others packagers that our point
> releases suck, that we introduce huge regressions etc. The above paragraph
> explains the reason.
> 
> We have to be realistic here, upstream does NOT have the manpower to
> maintain more than one release.
> 
> So, I honestly think that if we work together you can do a better work
> cherry- picking than we can. Also we should develop tools to make your life
> easier.

We test the point releases before we ship them to end users.  Sometimes we find 
regressions.  It happens.  I'm pretty sure I didn't say the suck.  I've 
invested a lot of hours of my free time both getting approval to ship them 
post release and packaging them as well.  I wouldn't have done that if I 
thought they sucked.

I'm well aware of the amount of testing the stable branches get.  That's why 
we do the testing we do before we ship them.  I can't recall the last time we 
had end user complaints of a regression after a stable update has been 
released to end users.

I think the best tool to make our life easier would be maintenance branches.  
If you only want to have one every 3 - 6 KF5 releases, fine.

Scott K