----- Original Message ----- > Hi,
> During CCCEU14 conference and over emails, I spoke with many > CloudStack users and I think most of us would like to have and use > LTS releases. I propose that; > - We encourage a habit to backport a bugfix to all qualifying > branches whether or not those branches are LTS > - We contribute (unit, integration) tests on LTS branches as well on > other qualifying branches > - We put correct affect version and fix version on JIRA so issues > that should be backported to a branch are identified > - We adapt the LTS release model from Fedora/Ubuntu projects. Please > share ideas, comments? > - We officially recognize a LTS release branch, say 4.3 now and > everyone helps to maintain it, backport bugfixes etc. > - Until a next latest stable release is published that we all > mutually agree, we keep working on the LTS branch. After say we have > a stable 4.5.0 or 4.5.1 release, we can agree to recognize 4.5 as > our next LTS branch and work on it. > Having a robust product release means we all (developers, users, > sysadmins, ops etc.) can save time consumed on firefighting a > CloudStack cloud. Having a LTS branch and releases will get us there > because on a LTS release/support branch we don’t do feature work at > all and we only invest time to do bugfixing etc. +1 with everything. It is essential for the end users to have a bug fix releases instead of waiting for the next release to come. I've noticed that with CloudStack project majority of latest releases have been delayed from their initial estimated dates. This creates a lot of false expectations and false hopes for the end users who are waiting for the bug fixes. I guess a lot of productions users would rather see a bug being fixed than get a bunch of new features, which are likely to be broken or unpolished in the first release. Also, new releases are likely to introduce additional issues upon upgrading forcing people to downgrade back to their old releases with old unfixed bugs. The LTS release would solve a lot of issues and frustrations and should actually be beneficial to the project and community. In my opinion the Ubuntu team has captured the releases cycles perfectly well. Perhaps ACS should have a stable release every 2 years and a testing release every 2 or 4 quarters. This way, the users will be happy to have a solid backported platform that they can run in production and the developers will be happy working on a new feature set. > ShapeBlue is already serving their customers with product patching > service and using our own packages hosting > (http://shapeblue.com/packages) we publish patches on the “main” > repository for everyone. We also publish details of the patch we > publish on our Github wiki, such as this example; > https://github.com/shapeblue/cloudstack/wiki/Release-Notes:-ACS-4.4.1-ShapeBlue-Patch01 > We’ve recently started putting patches and release notes publicly > (rather than just using emails) so you’ll see more of these in > future. When we make patches we push the changes to upstream > branches as well, in fact we fix on upstream first. Kudos to ShapeBlue team!!! Many thanks for your contributions and help on promoting this project. I love you guys!!! > In our experience the 4.3.x releases are most stable and so we’re > backporting bugfixes from 4.4/4.5/master. I’m personally going > through a list of JIRA issues which has affect version 4.3.0 and/or > 4.3.1 but the bugfix either does not exist or exists in a non-4.3 > branch. > Regards, > Rohit Yadav > Software Architect, ShapeBlue > M. +91 88 262 30892 | rohit.ya...@shapeblue.com > Blog: bhaisaab.org | Twitter: @_bhaisaab > Find out more about ShapeBlue and our range of CloudStack related > services > IaaS Cloud Design & > Build<http://shapeblue.com/iaas-cloud-design-and-build//> > CSForge – rapid IaaS deployment > framework<http://shapeblue.com/csforge/> > CloudStack Consulting<http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-consultancy/> > CloudStack Software > Engineering<http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-software-engineering/> > CloudStack Infrastructure > Support<http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-infrastructure-support/> > CloudStack Bootcamp Training > Courses<http://shapeblue.com/cloudstack-training/> > This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are > intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is > addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the > author and do not necessarily represent those of Shape Blue Ltd or > related companies. If you are not the intended recipient of this > email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor > copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe > you have received this email in error. Shape Blue Ltd is a company > incorporated in England & Wales. ShapeBlue Services India LLP is a > company incorporated in India and is operated under license from > Shape Blue Ltd. Shape Blue Brasil Consultoria Ltda is a company > incorporated in Brasil and is operated under license from Shape Blue > Ltd. ShapeBlue SA Pty Ltd is a company registered by The Republic of > South Africa and is traded under license from Shape Blue Ltd. > ShapeBlue is a registered trademark.
