Feature changed by: Juraj Václavík (juvi) Feature #314818, revision 4 Title: Life cycle for OpenSUSE openSUSE Distribution: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Juraj Václavík (juvi) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Although this theme has been here many times, I return it again. The reason is discussion in Ubuntu and Fedora communities, that reflects the same problems, as exists in OpenSUSE.. I think, that today's concept is not good and limiting the spreading this, I think, very good distribution into population. Today's concept generates every 8 (or another number) months a quite new distribution. That distribution includes the newest features - but it is suitable for only a small group of users, as these features significantly decreases the platform stability. This distinctively decrease exploatibility for a great group of users, that are not very familiarly with Linux OS. I think, that surely exists good concepts, that can solve it. I think, that only determining a some period is not a solution, as, of course, every quite new system must have a lot of bugs. To get a good and stable distribution this distribution must have a time for consolidation. I also think, that OpenSUSE has a good tools that is very suitable for solving problems, that my concept require: good work with repositories, rolling update - thumbleweed and alternatively evergreen. I think, that we can search solution easy by: 1) Prolongation the life cycle - the new major version distribution can start every approximately 18 - 24 months. 2) structure the life cycle - development stage, stabilization stage, production stage, maintenance stage, (evergreen stage?) 3) generating production distributions from "the actual state of the art" every 6 months The period of stages let is a theme for discussion. I think, that developing stage can take about 6 months. This stage finished by generating the "zero" minor number distribution - that is not for production use. It follows stabilization stage - ~3 months, that includes minor number 1 and 2. The minor number 2 started the stable - stage, that continues by releasing minor number every 6 month (3, 4, - 5). During this stage can be accepted new version of applications, but - only repaired and actualized version of desktop environment, compiler - and libraries. Maybe some exceptions for last minor version? What about - new version of kernel - it is theme for discussion. + (production) stage, that continues by releasing minor number every 6 + month (3, 4, 5). During this stage can be accepted new version of + applications, but only repaired and actualized version of desktop + environment, compiler and libraries. Maybe some exceptions for last + minor version? What about new version of kernel - it is theme for + discussion. Every minor number releases since 2 have own maintenance stage, I suggest 9-12 months and last (minor number 5) 18 months; this concept expects massive using rolling update between minor version of distributions. It would be interesting to have extra stage for last version (5) - evergreen. Probably it is necessary to synchronize OpenSUSE development cycle with SLES/SLED, but it concerns only duration of stages - I can imagine, that minor version 2 can be a base of this commercial distributions and (last) version can be base for "service pack" and it is also reason for some exception and more extensively updating. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/314818