ma., 02.11.2009 kl. 14.45 +0100, skrev Sebastien Bacher: > Hey everybody, [snip] Hey Seb :)
> - try to be conservative in the changes which will land in lucid, GNOME > upstream will likely rework some component in the GNOME3 optic and other > teams or upstream will probably keep working on changes to improve the > user experience, while the work they do is great it would probably be > good to wait until lucid+1 to bring those in the default installation. > I expect we will have some of those discussions at UDS too [snip] It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this. The LTS releases should be the main releases for new users and companies. That means they should not only be stable from day one, but should have high quality documentation, books, and support both commercial and free. One way to accomplish this, I think, is to consider the last release before the LTS a QA release. Between Karmic and Lucid, there should be as little change as possible. Documentation written for Karmic should require only minor changes in order to be applicable to Lucid. One of the key strengths Microsoft has (especially for Win XP), is that everyone knows someone who knows all the secrets and workarounds since they've used it for some time themselves. (I can still do blind support of XP over the phone even though I haven't used it in a year -- I cannot do that with Hardy). If we consider Karmic a QA release to Lucid, we'll have a lot of users who can help their neighbours once Lucid is released. It will also give less technical users more confidence when recommending Ubuntu. We really need that in order to reach the crucial tipping point. I really wish the development of Ubuntu could become something like this: LTS+1 (first release after LTS): time for changing lanes. Radical changes can be done, if it makes sense. I hope we'll refrain from changing stuff for the sole purpose of elevating the fancyfactor. We really push the limits in this release and everyone knows that chances are high that regressions are introduced. This is where we pave the way to the future, and new users aren't made to expect this to be flawless. It should still be useful to normal users of Ubuntu, of course. LTS+2: Push further in the direction set in the previous release, learning from the experiences of the previous cycle, and work on stabilizing the system. Sometimes, good ideas just don't work in practice. This is a good place to revert if we find examples of those. LTS+3: The way forward is now clear. Refine the changes from the two previous cycles, preparing for the LTS. We now know mostly what the LTS will be like, so greater resources can be put into writing long-term documentation, books, screencasts, etc. Since we have six months to do this work, we can try to make this available in more languages in a more consistent way. People have been expecting this six-month QA period, and have planned for it so they have time to work on marketing and docs for the LTS. LTS: After three cycles of high pulse and intense work on features, this is a good time to catch our breath. It is a time for philosophy, debating and figuring out what the future should be like. These are of course just some ideas, but I think it's very important that users know what to expect. Karmic has been labeled "ME of Ubuntu" and "Vista of Ubuntu", etc. The reason is not that Karmic is bad, it's just that the expectations were sky-high without the users knowing about the big changes behind the scene. This is really bad marketing. Yes, this is free software, but more users still mean higher potential, and higher potential means more effort. What do you think? Jo-Erlend Schinstad -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
