long term support release

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 09:16 -0900, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2008 6:30 AM, David Mansfield <fedora at dm.cobite.com> wrote:
> > Fair enough.  I wasn't aware of the commercial aspect of the Ubuntu LTS
> > and that is important to understand.
> 
> >
> > Just to be sure, though, your thesis argument is: community supported
> > software can do many things (ie. invent a kernel, reverse engineer usb
> > cameras etc), but community can not support an operating system for 2
> > years?  I think that people are falling back on the 'fedora legacy
> > failed' argument, but I don't think it applies.
> 
> I would not say 'cannot'. I would say 'unwilling to'. This community
> is unwilling to devote enough effort to sustain an additional longer
> term branch. 

Well, what seem to missing: There are folks outside who believe to be
able to maintain EPEL - I'd agree with you that they won't be able to
provide the same quality as RH intends to do, esp. when RHEL will be
heading towards their EOLs.

Also: There had repeatedly expressed interest of volunteers to
contribute to something like a Fedora LTS. 

Further: IMO, fedora legacy did not fail. It was discontinued by
management, because it collided the certain business interests.


Anyway, meanwhile, the "Fedora world" has changed. 

Technically, launching a Fedora LTS would not require uch more than
introducing a community-accessible branch (formerly known as Fedora X)
in CVS and to keep the buildsystem alive.

> I have absolutely no problem with another attempt at community effort
> as a follow-up to what Legacy did. I just don't think its where this
> community of contributors wants to contribute.
I disagree, c.f. above.

In worst case, a Fedora LTS would end up as a rotten, broken, unstable
distro, once having been "Fedora X".

I don't see how this would be a regression of a discontinued "Fedora X".

> I do not like this proposal. In fact I loath it. Why? because it
> delibrately takes focus away from the 'shallow' dev cycles.
If you're serious about this, you're probably better off to discontinue
EPEL, because it "sucks off users" from Fedora.

Ralf