Slashdot Mirror
Mandrake Linux Development Process Changes
joestar writes "Just found at MandrakeLinux.com: 'MandrakeSoft today announced a major evolution in the way that future Mandrake Linux distributions will be engineered and released. The purpose of this new development process is to provide the highest level of new features, as well as maximizing the quality of new products.' In short: for each release, there will be a 'Community' release, equivalent to a common Mandrake release, with all latest features. Several months later an 'Official' release - based on the 'Community' - will be available. Both of them will be released publicly and supported. The new process will start with the upcoming Mandrake 10.0."
It seems a little too coincidental that Mandrake (originally a derivative of RedHat) is now switching to the same model as RedHat. RedHat has their "community" version, Fedora, and an "official" version, the Red Hat Enterprise Server.
libertarianswag.com
It's interesting to see the different distributions slowly moving towards Debian's release policies. My question for the Fedora and now Mandrake is, why not utilize a very organized and effective "community" that exists right now of free software developers?
Certainly Debian's release schedule could be improved, but Debian is hard to beat in "stuff just working" when it is released.
http://www.talknerdy.org
If you read the PR, the Mandrake Community version will be exactly the same as a regular Mandrake Linux release. No more, no less, and their goal is to have the Official version totally polished/bug free... I'm not as pessimistic as you are!
I agree. They're not doing (as has been accused here) this:
Old New
Alpha Beta
Beta Community
Stable Official
what they are doing is adding a cycle after the release "goes gold", which to me is an excelent idea.
They basiually did the same thing for Mandrake Club members where they took 9.2 and all the errata and did a 9.2.1 ISO release.
This truely provides the best of both worlds. If you want the latest kung fu, and can deal with a few bumps and bruises, go for it, but if you're waiting for enlightenement (not the window manager), wait for the Official, which might be a bit behind, but will have the last of the bugs hammered out of it.
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
And since, unlike debian, stable releases will be regular (probably two per year), stable will actually be sort of current!
Hopefully this will finally make Mandrake suitable for corporate use (since Redhat Enterprise did the same thing against regular Redhat and now Fedora and Debian does a similar but MUCH slower version).
I hope that source based distros start to find a similar solution ie. Gentoo and Gentoo"Stable" (well mirrored and tested) so that they can reach a more mission critical set of users. I use ROCK Linux and they have been trying and failing to bridge this gap. It is important especially if distro makers want big contracts.
Well, the way I look at it is that they are trying to make the "Official" release more stable though it will probably have the downside of being "older" technology then in newer distro's. The Official version will be availble for public download shortly after it's available to club members so I don't see this as a big deal. With regards to the "renaming beta", the community version will likely be "as tested" as their recently releases which many have complained have some stability problems (I personally have noticed any) and the "official" version is aimed to be a rock solid release. That's at least what I am interpreting. This doesn't mean the community release is a beta, it's just not going to be as throughly tested as the "official" version will be. I also assume the official version will have extra software (ala the power pack).
quote: It just means people will wait out until the Official Release is available. This will not have a significant impact on defect reduction based on higher rates of beta testing.
No, it just means that you're incapable of looking at it from the perspective of anyone who uses Mandrake.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
How many /. type folx are actually paying for linux distributions these days? I'm not seeking flamebait, but just curious. With distro's like Mandrake, Suse, and Redhat all starting to charge some cash for their production releases, are more people starting to look to alternatives such as Gentoo and Debian? Are others starting to scrap the idea of Linux and move to OSX?
What gets you stoked about Linux? The price tag? Quality? Security? or the fact that it isn't M$.
I'd be willing to pay for a distro like SuSE (or whatever) if I knew that the quality was uber-superb. But even my latest go-round with RedHat 9 has left me fairly unimpressed... Maybe I just love OS X too much?
java guy, tech blog...
"2) Fedora is in fact the same as the Mandrake Cooker project, which started... 5 years ago."
Nope sorry Fedora is NOT the same as Cooker. Ever heard of Rawhide? Who is copying who again?
Second off Fedora releases go through a LOT of public testing unlike Rawhide and Mandrake Cooker. Fedora IS designed to be a stable release. Cooker, "Cooker is an experimental distribution, it's not for daily use!". Contrast that with "The goal of the Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free software.". Pretty dam big difference.
The ONLY difference between Fedora and Mandrake's new "community" product is the respective QA of each company and how long the releases are supported.
Good Troll, but *Red Hat* is the one innovating here.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
One of the main things I like about Mandrake is the up-to-dateness of everything in a standard release. I disagree about it being a renamed beta. After all, a beta can (and does) have changing versions the included software prior to release. Also, with betas, you're using software that is subject to serious change without much suport going from point A to point B. From what it looks like, this will be more like the FreeBSD -release branch, where only bugfixes and security updates are made to the previous release. And, there is a continual update path - just apply the update packages and you're there. No need to run the installer to install/upgrade each time as with a new beta.
I think this move helps reconcile the differences between catering to people like me, who use Mandrake at home and don't mind a few rough edges here and there (which I didn't even notice this time around) in order to get the latest and greatest with serious computing environments (i.e., servers) that need stable, tested software in order to effectively serve their purposes.
I think no matter what amount of pre-release testing they put into a release, it won't become seriously stable until it has been in the wild serving real-world needs. This just acknowledges that reality and solidifies it into a process.
I did not say anything about money.
I asked what they get.
It doesn't have to be cash. I feel this is an important point, because the drive that makes Linux great, may not be the same as today contributors get older, and the young tech see linux as something thats been 'done'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Cooker was from the begining available in real time on Internet (mirrored every hour) with a transparent development scheme (CVS, mailing list, changelog altert) while Rawhide was only available from time to time and with no transparency.
Additionnaly Cooker is useable. There is many people who are using it on their Desktop. This make the strenght of the system.
This isn't so much a change in the way Mandrake operates, only in the way they publish the releases.
....
...
Mandrake already maintains internal trees of some of the releases. For instance, HP has a version of Mandrake 9.1, 9.1.2, which has all the fixes for 9.1 plus some customisations for HP.
So, now we're just seeing this externally
You may also be old enough to remember Mandrake 7.0.1