On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 4:05 AM, Wookey <woo...@wookware.org> wrote: > +++ Clark, Rob [2012-04-05 21:10 -0500]: >> just some random thoughts on our release model, etc.. I've been >> meaning to write up for a while but haven't had time >> >> There has been some feedback, for example on #pandaboard, that the >> monthly release cycle is confusing and detrimental for folks looking >> for something working and stable, and not necessarily bleeding edge, > > You make some good points.
+1, good post Rob! > The fundamental question really is 'are we a distro or not'? If linaro > is not a distro then no-one should be expecting stable releases - we > are a technology showcase, and developer quick-start mechanism, and > the existing process seems reasonably appropriate for that, but if we > are expecting people to actually base real work off our outputs, then > he's right and we ought to change some things. With our current quick cadence, it does seem to be confusing the users where by users I'm not saying end users but more smarter than the average bear types which are making use of development boards. Aunt Tillie doesn't come home from the local mall with a panda board in hand and a project on her mind. > The original model was that we just sent things upstream and people > who wanted a stable platform used whatever distro they wanted. But by > putting out images and encouraging people to use them we seem to be > increasingly viewed as a distro and so users will expect distro levels > of integration testing and stability. Exactly. With putting something together and releasing it comes expectations, intended or not. Put another way can anyone think of an intel "showcase" distro that would be akin to what we're doing now? PowerPC? I would suggest OpenEmbedded or say Cyanogenmod would be the closest examples. We're pretty unique but using a common distro release mechanism which people identify with. In Gentoo a few years back we had this issue. We had quarterly releases and it was just too fast. So, we got rid of releases. Instead one just pulled the latest install media and depending on the last time that media had been refreshed you'd either have a short or longer upgraded cycle as you would install. Imagine, here's the linaro install media for panda. You can choose stable or development. Development is a continuous rolling daily CI. Stable is as the release team feels it's appropriate to update. > I think we should continue to resists 'distroness', concentrate on > upstreaming and discourage the use of our releases for anything other > than development, but it seems to me that things are headed in exactly > the opposite direction at the moment. I like Rob's suggestion of stable and unstable. I agree we should resist the full complexities that other distros do. > There is a fundamental problem of timing - it takes several months > longer, sometimes years, for people to get what we are doing via a > distro, and that's too long for many of them, which is where the > pressure comes from. We are all aware of that tension. To me the other distros are going to do what they are going to do. It's their business. Meanwhile we know what we want and I think we have a good idea of what the people who pick up the boards that we care about want. I think keeping those two groups happy is what counts. > So are we a distro now or not? We are. Keeping those that use our codebase happy I would advocate is an important goal. > Wookey > -- > Principal hats: Linaro, Emdebian, Wookware, Balloonboard, ARM > http://wookware.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > linaro-dev mailing list > linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org > http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev -- Regards, Tom "Where's the kaboom!? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" Marvin Martian Multimedia Tech Lead | Linaro.org │ Open source software for ARM SoCs w) tom.gall att linaro.org w) tom_gall att vnet.ibm.com h) tom_gall att mac.com _______________________________________________ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
