On 21 July 2017 at 08:50, Basil Chupin <blchupin@iinet.net.au> wrote:
By "he correctly stated" I assume you mean Patrick and not Richard.
OK: it's a "development platform" which, by defintion, really means a glorified beta for the next version of openSUSE. I can't argue against that.
I can argue against the 'glorified beta' tag, and I will. But I will do so by better explaining what really goes on. For starters, I will explain for whom (for which users) Tumbleweed is developed for. As a rolling release, Tumbleweed is developed for users who desire the latest upstream packages as soon as they're 'ready'. 'ready' is a defined in collaboration between upstreams (we typically choose upstream stable versions), our maintainers (we trust their judgement when they say something is stable or not) and automated QA (we don't ship stuff we know to be broken). The above definition of Tumbleweed users does often include, a subset of that targetted user base, lots of openSUSE's developers. But Tumbleweed is not a glorified beta, nor (directly) a development platform for 'future openSUSE releases' (especially if you mean openSUSE Leap releases - people should be specific considering Tumbleweed and Leap are two different distributions which we both support equally and have their own release models) openSUSE Leap minor releases (eg. 42.3) consist of effectively 3 'tranches' of packages (this is a simplification for the benefit of this discussion, Release Managers can go into more detail if desired). Tranche 1 = The Base System = Is provided by SUSE Linux Enterprise. Tumbleweed plays no direct part in the Development of Tranche 1. We take the sources from SLE, and use them in openSUSE Leap. Tranche 2 = Previous Leap Minor Releases = In each Leap minor release a significant number of packages are inherited from the previous minor releases with no modifications. Tumbleweed plays no part in the Development of Tranche 2 Tranche 3 = Tumbleweed. About 1/3rd of 42.3 includes packages which are effectively backported from Tumbleweed. This is done on an ad-hoc basis driven by our contributors. These backports need testing separately from what is done with Tumbleweed, so while I can see where people come from when they say Tumbleweed is the 'development platform' for Leap, in reality it's more of a case of Leap doing additional work to reap benefits from that which is being done in Tumbleweed. Key point - For Leap MINOR releases, there is no direct pipeline where people can think something in Tumbleweed will end up in a Leap minor release. Tumbleweed is not the development platform in those cases, but the Leap rolling development builds (which have replaced Leaps Alphas/Betas) take that role. For openSUSE Leap MAJOR releases (eg. the upcoming 15) it is a different story, but that story still doesn't fit the narrative that Tumbleweed is a "glorified beta" for openSUSE openSUSE Leap 15 will be based on SLE 15, providing the equivalent of "Tranche 1" in the above example. SLE 15 will be based on a Tumbleweed snapshot that will probably be at least 6 months 'out of date' before it is released. Nothing SUSE will use in SLE 15 will get there without being part of Tumbleweed first. "Tranche 2" will not exist because there are no minor releases from which to base on. It will come back in 15.1 and later. "Tranche 3" will still exist, and will probably equate to about 2/3rds of Leap 15. So, if you wanted to simply describe the situation, you could say that in addition to being a standalone, reliable rolling release, Tumbleweed does double as the development platform for SLE. You could just as equally say that in addition to being an enterprise regular release, SLE doubles as the development platform for Leap. Therefore if you want to throw the term 'glorified beta' into the mix, it gets a little bit weird.. if Tumbleweed is a 'glorified beta' for SLE, then SLE is a 'glorified beta' for Leap. And that is a rather amusing, if wholly inaccurate, extrapolation of the situation. It's much better to accept the 3 distributions in the openSUSE/SLE extended family on their own merits and avoid attaching emotive labels to the relationships between them. Tumbleweed is for people who want stability with rapid change reflecting what's going on in the FOSS word. SLE is for enterprise users who want absolute reliability, a slower pace of change, and a smaller package set in their Linux OS. Leap is for people in between, wanting reliability with a slower pace of change but also with a larger package set in their Linux OS. None are 'glorified betas' of each other, and we work collaboratively across all of them to share as much code & good practice to benefit all 3 distributions. Tumbleweed benefits SLE and Leap, SLE benefits Tumbleweed & Leap, Leap benefits Tumbleweed & SLE. All pretty equally. Hope this clears that up. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org