Hi :) Thanks :) I think that reinforces what Marc Pare is saying about needing more than a month or so support. Also it seems the overlap period will be far greater, unless they switch to only doing LTSes every 4 years to be more in-line with MS. Regards from Tom :)
--- On Tue, 5/6/12, Craig Olofson <[email protected]> wrote: From: Craig Olofson <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: Of "business ready use" and bugs in LibreOffice and a LibreOffice LTS To: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, 5 June, 2012, 21:46 Fyi Canonical changed LTS support for the desktop from 3 to 5 years, starting with 12.04, to better accommodate their OEM customers. > Normal Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. Previous Ubuntu LTS (Long > Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years > on the server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, LTS releases will be supported > for 5 years on both the desktop and the server. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases hth, -Craig On 06/05/2012 01:42 PM, Tom Davies wrote: > Hi :) > Ubuntu LTS lasts for 3 years (for desktops) but are released every 2 years. > This gives orgs the 1 year of testing they need before migrating from the > previous LTS and moving to the new one. If they gave 3 years support and > released every 3 years then orgs would have a 1 year gap running an > unsupported LTS while they were still testing the new one. Now i understand > why the 1 year overlap is so important to Ubuntu. > Regards from > Tom :) > > --- On Tue, 5/6/12, Marc Paré<[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Marc Paré<[email protected]> > Subject: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: Of "business ready use" and bugs in > LibreOffice and a LibreOffice LTS > To: [email protected] > Date: Tuesday, 5 June, 2012, 21:23 > > Hi Charles, > > Le 2012-06-05 09:12, Charles-H. Schulz a écrit : >> Thank you for bringing that up, it's an interesting discussion. Here's >> what I think reading your message. You're asking in fact two questions. >> One of which might already have been answered by a few of our corporate >> members/sponsors. >> * LTS obviously means long term support. Both "support" and "long term" >> deserve careful consideration. I will in this email first focus on >> the term "support". If we speak of support, we must think of a >> support provider. In this case, does this mean we should think -as >> TDF, as a project- of providing professional support to users >> (obviously for a fee)? I don't think it's your idea, but I thought I >> would highlight the implications of such a matter. >> * Have we studied what some of the existing support/service providers >> on LibreOffice already offer? I am not so sure but I'm under the >> impression that you can order support (and in this case a "LTS" kind >> of support) from Suse and Canonical (there are others) on one >> specific version of LibreOffice. That is, these vendors have one >> reference version of LibreOffice, say the 3.4.5, and they provide >> support and services on it making it their de facto LTS version. > Yes, this is fine as they will guarantee that LibreNormal Ubuntu releases are > supported for 18 months. Previous Ubuntu LTS > (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop > and 5 years on the server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, LTS releases > will be supported for 5 years on both the desktop and the server. Office >will work on their systems and they will take care of any dependencies and >network-ability. But I don't think they would undertake any code revision and >code features into their LTS versions, not unless they have a large team of >coders, which in this case would make them "competitors" to our work/product >(read "fork"). This would take us back to the days of the many different >versions of OOo -- the same situation that drew all of these different groups >into one LibreOffice community. > > Leaving support/service providers to develop an LTS version, in my opinion, > is not the right strategy to adopt. > >> Back to your suggestion: do you mean we should relabel the older branch >> "LTS", knowing that each of our releases in one branch really works >> like a "service pack"? If we had the ability to provide incremental >> updates (we will one day) we would have the feelings we have two >> versions, and sometimes "maintenance updates". So at some point, say >> the 3.5.4, we label it LTS, because we're close to open a new branch, >> the 3.6, and we can suggest service providers to base their support >> offers on this one for the time being. Did I get you right? > No. I suggest that at some point, the TDF/LibreOffice should designate an LTS > version for large/small organizations/businesses. These would have developers > oversee the fixing of bugs for a fixed term (let's say a 3 year period) after > which time another LTS version would be designated. The LTS maintenance would > NOT introduce any new functions to the distro but only service bug > correction. IMO, if any business entity would like to add any new > functionality, then this is where a support/service provider would step in > and, hopefully, contribute any development of code back to the community. > > I don't really think this is a new concept as even Mozilla-Firefox offers its > own "Extended Support Release (ESR)" version for corporate users[1]. When > critical software packages are installed in large corporations, a lot of > energy in investment of time, training and documentation is expended in order > to get employees up to speed. LibreOffice certainly falls into this category > (critical software -- wordprocessing software). While Firefox ESR is being > released initially for a period of approximately 1 year, IMO, I believe they > will ultimately find that a longer term will be necessary for these large > organizations. As for a version of LibreOffice LTS (or ESR), the impact of > change for large organizations is even larger due to the amount of training > of staff of new features (even more so in the educational field with the > training of younger students). > > If we are looking to supplant MSO in the office place, we need to realize and > accept the simple fact that the amount of software/network testing as well as > (and even more importantly) the training of staff for large orgainizations is > considerable. I sincerely doubt that a "one year"-term LTS for LibreOffice > would suffice; one year is just about enough time to test out the suite > before it is even installed; most organizations simply do not have the > manpower to move any quicker. > > If we wish to compete in the large business market place we need to plan and > develop more strategically with our releases. Developing an LTS version will > fix this. Otherwise, the choice will remain MSO for office use, where MSO has > a longer term of support with incremental changes for bugfixes and where > LibreOffice will remain marginalized as an office suite. > >> Best, >> >> -- Charles-H. Schulz Co-founder& Director, The Document Foundation, >> Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany Rechtsfähige Stiftung des >> bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details: >> http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint Mobile Number: +33 (0)6 98 65 >> 54 24. > Cheers, > > Marc > > [1] > https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:Proposal#Benefits > > > -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted > -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
