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Hi, Am 16.11.2015 um 17:51 schrieb Felix Miata:
Richard Brown composed on 2015-11-16 16:32 (UTC+0100):
Ken Schneider wrote:
Richard Brown wrote:
Evergreen will extend the supported lifetime of 13.1 for another year
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Evergreen#Supported_distributions
I guess we not know for sure until 13.1 is officially accepted into the Evergreen project.
The lifetimes given on that page (November 2016) is what was agreed in the core Evergreen team quite some time ago. This is pretty much a commitment we agreed on.
Based on the previos supported versions the was a 2-3 years support lifetime not just one.
11.4 was maintained (in total) from March 2011 until July 2015. (4 years, 3-4 months) 13.1 is currently committed until November 2016 (3 years). The Evergreen project always aimed at a minimal lifetime of three years in total. The decision to "only" do the three years was based on the fact that we never had to commit anything like this so long time in advance. So the current committed lifetime was set to a minimum. The real lifetime now will depend on the interests of contributors. We already got indications that kernel maintenance could be done for a longer time. To commit to a longer lifetime at this moment I'd like to hear at least 2-3 trusted people to step up saying they'll keep it running for a certain timeframe.
I can tell you, based on my conversations with Wolfgang Rosenauer (who is one of the main Evergreen Maintainers) that he seems to be putting all of his interest and energies into Leap.
Leap offers only a subset of what the entire long term release-using universe wants, omitting the 32 bit arch that would allow all openSUSE users to continue being supported openSUSE users for the foreseeable future. This is part of the reason for this thread's OP.
This might be true. Still what Richard wrote is true. I'll and I have put some energy into making Leap a viable replacement for Evergreen. For my own usecase this goal is achieved. In contrast to my earlier plans I'll now migrate everything to 42.1 instead of 13.1 since I do not need any 32bit system anymore. I'll stick to my earlier commitment and will do what is needed to deliver on 13.1 but do not expect that much energy from myself beyond this commitment. But this is not a problem because it seems there is so much demand on 32bit support that there must be many people willing to help us with that. And I'm happy to give people all information required to maintain Evergreen. I even will help and most likely contribute for my set of packages I'm maintainer for in any case.
Given the timing of how Leap was announced after Evergreen support for 13.1 was already announced, I'm not surprised the expected end date for Evergreen 13.1 is a lot shorter than Evergreen 11.4
Given the history of Evergreen lifetimes, if I were doing a fresh installation now, it would be tough to decide on the better gamble. Evergreen 11.4 continues to accept patches. Its repos contain updates provided as recently as last month. Had I had advance knowledge of this extended life, I would not have abandoned 11.4 for 13.1.
NOBODY monitors 11.4 packages for security issues anymore. Some people might still submit single pieces but 11.4 has to be taken as vulnerable by default meanwhile. This is the big difference betweenn "accepting contributions" and "someone is actively checking every publically announced security issue and checks if 11.4 is affected and eventually fixes it".
Given the evolution transpiring since 13.1 was selected as the Evergreen to follow 11.4, and that 13.2 looks to be the last ever stable openSUSE release for all current openSUSE users, maybe "official" Evergreening 13.1 should be skipped, replaced by 13.2. This might inconvenience current 13.1 users. However, those who installed 13.1 early on planned to have official support continue only until May 2016. Already they have had an extra 6 months official support, with planned Evergreen start delayed by same 6 months, without the planned Evergreen termination also being delayed.
Yes, the timing is very bad and if we would have known the situation back when the plan was announced we would maintain 13.2 I guess.
Given the switch from 8 month to 12 month planned release cycles, maybe a better plan would be an extended official 13.1 support period, possibly until May 2016 to give 13.1 users ample time to switch to 13.2, and make 13.2 the Evergreen to follow 11.4, unless 13.2 too will eventually become an Evergreen.
The problem with all that is: There was a plan. And this plan was announced long ago. Honestly personally I find it more important to stick to that plan were people are counting on instead switching plans now. So my opinion: We will follow the plan and the given commitments. If people are stepping up to make 13.2 an Evergreen release, that is perfectly fine. In the beginning we had two subsequent streams as well. It's not doubling the efforts in most cases. (Sometimes it might.) A simple summary of all I have written above: Just find the people joining the Evergreen effort interested in 13.2 or 13.1 and then we can do a replanning. Feel free to find volunteers in the community and we'll make it work. Wolfgang -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org