KDE Gear 24.02 bug fix releases and next Gear releases

[Carl Schwan]

On Monday, November 27, 2023 8:57:26?AM GMT+1 Heiko Becker wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> the question of the next Gear release (after 24.02) came up in #kde-devel
> yesterday evening. Due to this, it also occured to me that we haven't
> scheduled any bug fix releases for 24.02 itself. Which is a bit connected
> to the first question, because I guess we don't want too many stable
> branches at the same time (as in more than 1 really).
> 
> I mostly see three options, but of course please chime if you think of
> something else:
> 
> 
> a) Continue with the usual dates, eg. 24.04 and 24.08. (or omitting 24.04
> and continue with 24.08 right away)
> 
> b) Continue with the usual interval, so 24.06, 24.10 and so on
> 
> c) Slightly change the interval to come back to the proven schedule with
> its nice numbers divisible by 4, so something like, 24.05 and 24.08.
> 
> 
> Personally, I'd favour b) or c). I think a) is either too short or too
> long. Not sure how b) would interact with holiday schedules, exams or
> distro releases though.

b) would mean the major gear releases and plasma releases would be sort of 
synchronized as both are once ever 4 months and Plasma releases have been 
happening in February, June and October. This would mean a return of a 
megarelease from the KDE 4 times, which is a something I would like to see but 
it is also a controversial idea.

As someone who spend a lot of time on the gear and plasma announcements every 
2 months, I personally would prefer to spend even more time on a big 
announcement every 4 months. Also from a promo perspective, having a bit 
announcement every 4 months for gear + plasma is more effective than having a 
less big annoucement every 2 months. This might also be good for distros as 
from a feature perspective, they can align themselve with one 4 months cycle 
and not 2 different 4 months cycles.

But in any case, that would be worse than the status quo is having the gear 
and plasma announcement just one week or two appart, as it would be quite 
unsustainable for the promo team in term of work load. And it means a 
prolonged period of release stress for us. Additionally the first release would 
eclipse the second one as tech/linux newspapers/youtubers will only report 
about the first release and not the second one, because they don't want to 
publish too much KDE news days appart.

So if we don't release the major version of Gear and Plasma at the same time, 
I would prefer to keep them apart as before and go with a) or c).

Cheers,
Carl

> 
> Regards,
> Heiko