Feature changed by: Juraj Václavík (juvi) Feature #314818, revision 8 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 (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. Discussion: #1: Michal Nidl (michalnidl) (2013-02-06 18:41:19) I completely agree with changes of life cycle of openSUSE. In my opinion the best posibility is to extend the basic life cycle to one year. Moreover I agree with all points suggested here. #2: Per Jessen (pjessen) (2013-02-07 11:15:29) Whether or not your ideas have merit, it doesn't make much sense to discuss them here. You're not talking about a feature, but a very significant change to the distro. It's probably better to discuss this on the opensuse-project mailing list. + #3: Juraj Václavík (juvi) (2013-02-16 19:42:50) (reply to #2) + Yes, this idea represents very significant change as, by my opinion, + todays concept limited spreading the OpenSUSE distribution. I repeat, + that this idea is for a wide discussion. I think, that OpenSUSE + distribution is not only for its developers, what are concentraced on + the opensuse-project mailing list. By my opinion, this platform is + closer to users and for this discussion is better. And, last, but not + least, this platform was recommended me... -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/314818