[gentoo-dev] Re: Revisiting GLEP 19

[Duncan]

Chris Gianelloni posted <1090441261.19552.124.camel@localhost>, excerpted
below,  on Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:21:01 -0400:

> I think 2 a year with a 2 year retention (4 releases) would be the sweet
> spot.  Nothing keeps users from running older releases, just we don't
> support them officially any more.

First, I'm a personal desktop user who migrated to Gentoo in large part
for its "freshness".  Thus, the very idea of slowing things down seems
counter to the entire Gentoo thing, here, tho I understand the enterprise
need, and the appeal of a Gentoo Linux Enterprise.  If it's going to be
done, in some ways, I think some other name might be more appropriate, tho
if it's based on Gentoo, the other side says it's entirely appropriate.

Anyway.. I replied here in particular, because I wanted to comment on the
point quoted.  From my observation of the commercial distribs and their
reaction to Enterprise, as well as business reaction to their enterprise
products, both the six month window and the two year window are to short. 

If it's to be based on Gentoo Linux with its current quarterly releases*,
it /would/ seem a multiple of that would be a good idea, and an annual one
sounds like just to big a deal, to much invested.  Thus, I'd propose
a tri-release multiple rather than every other release, for a nine-month
Enterprise release cycle rather than six.  The first three months of the
cycle could then be devoted to mostly supporting upgrades.  The second
three months would be focused on choosing and stabilizing a snapshot. 
This would offer a choice of two normal snapshot versions in case one had
been found to be less than optimal, plus the possibility of an intervening
version of individual packages if necessary.  At the six-month point, a
pre-release (aka Gentoo Enterprise Community) would be produced, which
enterprise users could then start validating, with the full release
(Gentoo Enterprise Official) three months later, incorporating any fixes
necessary during the three month early validation period.  This would also
allow a bit more room for vacations and various other short term breaks of
a month or so, where such might crimp a six-month release cycle (and
certainly /does/ crimp the Gentoo three-month cycle =:^( ).

If this sounds a bit like Mandrake's community/official release policy,
that's no accident.  They found there simply wasn't enough testing of the
beta and rc releases, and after a couple "dud" releases, came up with the
community/official release policy.  Enterprises don't like "dud" releases,
and if we start out with something like this, I think it'll improve the
likelihood of Gentoo getting the reputation for solid releases.

With a nine-month release cycle, that would be four releases every three
years.  If Gentoo Enterprise supported four releases back (five releases
total), that would be four years of actual support, including the three
months of "Community" support for verification.  That should be
comfortably enough beyond the three year general upgrade cycle that even
the conservative corporations should be comfortable with it, as it would
allow for three years of actual use, PLUS a comfortable verification and
conversion time at each end.

That would be comfortably more than the competition (save for Debian)
supports, as well.  OTOH, cutting that to four releases total (three back)
would remain an option, and still be reasonable.
...

* RE: the current quarterly releases:

IMO, these might better be three a year since all they are is snapshots
tested and fit for installation anyway, and don't really affect current
users with Gentoo already installed.  This would give the arch teams and
releng a bit more QC time on the snapshots, and allow more ebuild 
maintenance and development time in between releases, instead of the
constant focus on snapshot release stability, getting one out and having
to immediately start focusing on the next, with little time to focus on
just ebuilds/package quality itself, instead of the larger snapshot
quality, between release snapshots.

Or, to put it another way, it'd allow for a problem AND a vacation, in the
same release window, without crowding out individual package attention
entirely. <g>

For Enterprise, this would change the every third release, nine month
spacing, to every other release, eight month spacing, above, three in two
years, six in a four year life cycle (or five, and remain reasonably over
three years).

Of course, that's just my opinion.  I'm not trying to tilt at windmills,
wasn't yet around for the debate behind the quarterly release decision,
and if the current Gentoo Linux quarterly releases work..

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin



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