## Description Plasma 5 is an evolutionary release of the popular plasma desktop workspace. Plasma 5 runs on top of a fully hardware-accelerated graphics stack, using Qt 5, QML 2 and an OpenGL(-ES) scenegraph to deliver graphics onto the users' screens. This allows the rendering to be faster, more efficient, less power-hungry and enables a smoother user experience by freeing up resources of the system processor. Plasma 5 completes the migration of the workspace to Qt Quick that has begun in earlier releases.
Kubuntu would like to ship an ISO that provides the Plasma 5 experience while also shipping the regular KDE Software Collection with Plasma 1 ISO, so that users may be able to choose between a tested stable system and a newer system still in heavy development. ## The plan KDE Frameworks 5 (the libraries which Plasma 5 is based on ) will have a monthly release cadence, in order to iron out bugs faster while also providing new features to application developers. Unlike kde4libs in the KDE Softare Collection that it supercedes, it will not have bugfix only releases. Plasma 5 will most likely have a 3 month support/release cycle, with bug fixes every month. With respect to KDE Frameworks 5 and Plasma 5, the Kubuntu team makes the following commitments : * KDE Frameworks 5 will be updated to the last release until feature freeze, since upstream does not offer any bug fix updates for KF5 * Any future releases of KDE Frameworks 5 after feature freeze will be delivered via the Kubuntu PPA's * Plasma 5 will be delivered via the Kubuntu Next PPA for the utopic cycle in order to match up with upstreams faster cadence and to stabalize our own packages ## Why do we want a separate ISO Since Plasma 5 has undergone a huge change architechturally, we want to play it safe, while also providing a way for users to provide feedback to upstream KDE. Since Plasma 5 has no history of bug fixes, we also prefer not to get the packages into the archive and would not request an MRE. Providing packages via a PPA seems the most reasonable way to go about solving this problem. Note that even if Plasma 5 were suitable for MRE, the libraries it depends on, KF5 are not, so post-release maintenance of KF5 will limited to security fixes and cherry-picking selected patches for severe issues. This may impact our ability to update Plasma 5 post-release in the PPA. Once the software matures upstream, we plan to push the packages into Ubuntu 15.04 once the archive opens, and then eventually switch to Plasma 5 as the default desktop environment at some point in the future. Until such a change happens, we would still like users to try out Plasma 5 and provide feedback, which is why we would like a separate ISO to be made from packages from a PPA. Cheers Rohan Garg For the Kubuntu Team -- kubuntu-devel mailing list kubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-devel
