Fedora Might Shift To A Tick-Tock Release Cadence

[AdamW]

Sure, but that's the point - surprise or not, these big behind-the-scenes changes essentially forced the project to skip a release... it wasn't possible to deliver changes while keeping to a six-month cycle.

So what *is* your point exactly? Yes, we decided to take some time to make some major changes to Fedora. It was announced and planned long in advance. This is factually true. OK. What point is it that you're making, exactly?

[nanonyme]

The Fedora 20 --> 21 was GOING to be a year. They announced that. That wasn't a "shock." Fedora tends to do 6 - 8 months between releases. This time, with the splitting of the products, getting ready for Wayland, etc, they said they knew this would be about a year.

As I understood, not just directly user-visible things but also time was takes to improve release processes. Good release processes and working automation helps guarantee schedules leak in more predictable ways.

[eydee]

There is nothing broken with Gnome 3. With extensions you can make it behave any way you want.

The same is true for windows 8, it's still crap. Why aren't you using windows 8 then? A good product is good out of the box.

[mark45]

The same is true for windows 8, it's still crap. Why aren't you using windows 8 then? A good product is good out of the box.

True but the analogy is weak because windows 8 is not that stupid. Actually, Gnome 3 used to be even more stupid, kindergarten-grade stupid, and after the 1st release of Gnome3 people pointed out just how moronic their "design" is so they were forced to fix it slightly.
In windows 8 a few things are ass-backwards, Gnome 3 however, is designed to be ass-backwards from the ground-up, starting with Gtk.

[blackiwid]

True but the analogy is weak because windows 8 is not that stupid. Actually, Gnome 3 used to be even more stupid, kindergarten-grade stupid, and after the 1st release of Gnome3 people pointed out just how moronic their "design" is so they were forced to fix it slightly.
In windows 8 a few things are ass-backwards, Gnome 3 however, is designed to be ass-backwards from the ground-up, starting with Gtk.

you are bad and old-faschoned, I claim that so of course its true. I dont give any argument, why would I because I say it, its true. [/IRONIE]

What the fuck... how is it backwards? Its the most polished desktop, it reduced heavily the wasted spaces with big special panels, like firefox and chromium did before I guess google and mozilla is also backwards oriented.
The intertruced support for cloud services, very backwards orientated.

They cleaned the messy desktop shit away, its still posible to shit on your desktop with stuff if you activate it but defaults to a clean desktop without icons and stuff on it. its more keyboard centric but still even better usable on touch devices thats also very backwards centric. Its maybe not noob centric, so its not completly focused on mouse usage, where professionals cant get very productive, its good for noobs to have that, but when they get better they want to make as much as possible with shortcuts on keyboard or straight with touch environments.

They have dynamic workspaces, genious, love it, you never have to much or to less workspaces.

its the most polished desktop most modern looking desktop, all backwards focused.

For me its not good enough I switched to a tiling-wm, because they do the same but more consequent, even smaler panels, more control with keyboard... but if I had to use one of the big desktop it would be gnome with no doubt, and maybe I switch back some day.

The only Thing I dont really like is that you cant replace the window manager, else I would use gnome-shell with a tiling wm (and the tiling extentions dont do it for me at the moment).

[RahulSundaram]

Just auto update fedora for ever. You don't have to make it rolling release or to drop the numbers, just auto update it every six months and auto replace software that is discontinued. You must have only one fedora auto updated, any extra ISO file or Terminal command for upgrade it means that you have failed. You don't understand that Linux must become easier for simple users.

If you want that, you already have Arch Linux etc but that is a trade off. Do you want your desktop environment automatically upgraded to the very latest release? Some people will like that but it is suitable for everyone nor is it suitable for "simple users".

[wizard69]

If you want that, you already have Arch Linux etc but that is a trade off.

I gave up on fedora and purchased a Mac for my daily workstation several years ago. I did that because the release practices at the time sucked big time and apparently still do. Is it really that difficult to produce a release that doesn't require a reinstall every six months?

Take a look at it this way, I updated my Mac Every year since 2008 and never had a huge problem getting apps to run. Fedora would break half of what I had installed often requiring a rebuild of the app. Yes at times you have to break for the past but if you want to grab new users they will want a platform that isn't an upgrade nightmare. If not a rolling release at least focus on a three year life span.

For my LINUX Machines I usually install something other than Fedora.

Do you want your desktop environment automatically upgraded to the very latest release?

Not me! Honestly I don't like automatic updates. However when it comes time to update I don't want to have to deal with flaky apps due to somebody not taking the time to make sure a new lib is backward compatible.

Some people will like that but it is suitable for everyone nor is it suitable for "simple users".

What isn't suitable for most users is churn. That is the constant need to install a new version of Fedora and then battle with it for months to get everything working right again. Beyond that Fedroa has just been way to slow with some things. For example Python 3 should have been adopted years ago. This is actually funny because Fedora is always pushing boundaries with the latest and greatest but then puts head in sand when Python is brought up. If the Fedora team can keep 2.7 around forever, for no good reason, then they can certainly do more to keep a release stable for more than six months.

I actually have taken a renewed interest in Fedora as the new release seems to have addressed some of my issues. However now you guys are talking about replacing one broken approach with another. You really should focus on two years between a major releases at a minimal. I know this will bring intense whining and crying in ones soup for the Fedora camp but I have to ask are you guys professionals capable of managing a development program. Look at next weeks Fedora release as an indication of what is possible when rational plans are adhered too. Ask why a one year time period is seen as exceptional and is there a REAL justification for negativity.

[pipe13]

I give up... is there a REAL justification for negativity?

Okay. I'll byte.

[AdamW]

I gave up on fedora and purchased a Mac for my daily workstation several years ago. I did that because the release practices at the time sucked big time and apparently still do. Is it really that difficult to produce a release that doesn't require a reinstall every six months?

Take a look at it this way, I updated my Mac Every year since 2008 and never had a huge problem getting apps to run. Fedora would break half of what I had installed often requiring a rebuild of the app. Yes at times you have to break for the past but if you want to grab new users they will want a platform that isn't an upgrade nightmare. If not a rolling release at least focus on a three year life span.

For my LINUX Machines I usually install something other than Fedora.

Not me! Honestly I don't like automatic updates. However when it comes time to update I don't want to have to deal with flaky apps due to somebody not taking the time to make sure a new lib is backward compatible.


What isn't suitable for most users is churn. That is the constant need to install a new version of Fedora and then battle with it for months to get everything working right again. Beyond that Fedroa has just been way to slow with some things. For example Python 3 should have been adopted years ago. This is actually funny because Fedora is always pushing boundaries with the latest and greatest but then puts head in sand when Python is brought up. If the Fedora team can keep 2.7 around forever, for no good reason, then they can certainly do more to keep a release stable for more than six months.

I actually have taken a renewed interest in Fedora as the new release seems to have addressed some of my issues. However now you guys are talking about replacing one broken approach with another. You really should focus on two years between a major releases at a minimal. I know this will bring intense whining and crying in ones soup for the Fedora camp but I have to ask are you guys professionals capable of managing a development program. Look at next weeks Fedora release as an indication of what is possible when rational plans are adhered too. Ask why a one year time period is seen as exceptional and is there a REAL justification for negativity.

OK, so we could build a distro that releases every three years, and that'd make you happier. But as you say:

"I know this will bring intense whining and crying in ones soup for the Fedora camp"

i.e., it wouldn't make some *other* people happy. Yet you don't provide any particular argument as to why it would make sense for us to do the thing that makes you happy as opposed to the thing that makes other people happy: your entire justification appears to be 'because it would make me happy'. That's not enough.

One distribution can't make everyone happy. That's why we have lots of distributions: each one makes a different bunch of people happy. If that wasn't the case they'd have consolidated years ago. Fedora chooses a particular approach to building a distribution, to make a particular bunch of people happy. Releasing every three years would make Fedora a drastically different distribution, and probably one aimed at a completely different bunch of people. Could we make that change? Sure. Did you make any case for us to make it? Not really.

So, instead of just saying 'this is what Fedora should do', why not say *why* Fedora should do it? Beyond making you, one guy on a comment thread, happy?

BTW, Fedora doesn't require that you reinstall every six months, not in the slightest. For a start, each Fedora is supported until a month after the release of the next Fedora but one - that means Fedora 19 is still supported now, and will be until the start of January. On the six month cycle that means each release is supported for 13 months. And no, you don't have to reinstall when you do choose to upgrades. OS upgrades aren't perfect, never have been for any distro or OS, but I think the track record for Fedora has been fairly good since F17.

This system started off as F15, it's now F21 and will shortly be F22. My mail server's the same.

[RahulSundaram]

Beyond that Fedroa has just been way to slow with some things. For example Python 3 should have been adopted years ago. This is actually funny because Fedora is always pushing boundaries with the latest and greatest but then puts head in sand when Python is brought up. If the Fedora team can keep 2.7 around forever, for no good reason, then they can certainly do more to keep a release stable for more than six months.

Adam addressed the other points already but I wanted to note that this example isn't really a good one. Fedora contributors have been working on migrating a number of tools over the last several months to Python 3. Fedora 22 will have Python 3 as default

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Python_3_as_Default

Contrary to your claim, noone is putting their head in the sand. A simple google search would have shown you this.