Slashdot Mirror
Mark Shuttleworth Proposes Delaying next Ubuntu
Beuno writes "Mark Shuttleworth has proposed on the ubuntu-art mailing list to postpone the 'Dapper Drake' release by 6 weeks. He lays out the reasons pretty clearly: the delay should make the release a more user-friendly distro. He has also called up a community meeting in April 14th on IRC for community input. Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?" Commentary on this also available from the Tectonic site.
How long exactly has Longhorn, er, Vista been pushed off? Six weeks pales in comparison.
Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?
Absolutely.
A 6 week delay doesn't sound earth shattering to me... I fail to see the problem here, to be honest. Especially if it's about improving usability, an area critical for Linux adoption, which is one of the main purposes for this particular distro.
To me, this feels basically like delaying an extra security heavy distro 6 weeks to implement verify a new security protocol implementation works correctly.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Considering that they want this to be the first Ubuntu release that's supported for a long time and that can compete with things like SuSE's or RedHat's enterprise distributions, I'd say six weeks are perfectly acceptable.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
To be honest, Dapper is very stable and polished already. There's mixed reactions over the new Clearlooks scheme they've implemented but overall, it's turning out very well. I can't speak for the localisation issues, but a stable release is much better than a rushed release. If you want to try Dapper, Flight 5 should be just fine.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
>Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?
there are hundreds of distros already, and the only thing they all lack is polish, so yes.
what's the hurry?
Patience is a virtue. Ubuntu has no need to generate revenue, and if it takes six more weeks to make the release more usable for human beings, that can only be a good thing.
If it wasn't for the fact that Ubuntu is synchronized with Gnome releases I wouldn't mind the delay. But now they would have to either rush the next release, be late with it or completly skip Gnome 2.16. I hope they'll find some good solution because many users are preferring Ubuntu to other distros because of fairly nice bleeding-edgeness. With this step they could lose major selling point to causal Linux geeks.
The recent theme changes are not a step in good direction too. It looks abysymal and burns my eyes. Even tough I didn't like brown theme the new one made me miss it.
I think that almost everybody would agree that a little more time spent making a product better is a good thing.
:) Any steps, no matter how small, to appeal to the Chinese/Korean/Japanese markets will probably pay off well.
:)
It's not just about polish, though. TFA lays out a number of points where improvements are needed:
1. Testing
2. Certification
3. Localisation
4. (last but not least) Polish
Improvements to Asian localisation should help a ton of people - we're not all English speakers.
Not that it all matters to me, though... I use SUSE.
BaltikaTroika
This is the Ubuntu that will be competing with Windows Vista. It needs to be polished.
There is going to be a reasonably large number of desktop users willing to "try Linux out" just before they "upgrade" to Vista. The distribution they're most likely to try is currently Ubuntu, and if it is good enough, they might switch to Linux rather than Vista.
Got released in April, but the CDs didn't come out until everything was polished? Maybe a 6.05 edition?
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
By the way: does anyone know if dapper will ship a kernel that's been compiled with the version of gcc that's included on the distribution CD's? If badger had one fundamental flaw, it would be a kernel compiled with gcc3.4 and gcc 4.? included on the CD. People who need to compile e.g. their wireless driver because it's not included in the standard kernel, are fucked, because they may not have network access with the distribution files and need to download either gcc 3.4 or kernel sources...
The biggest issue is that not everyone will work on polish and bug fixing. Some will be working on development of new features. A good version control system should allow this state of affairs, but what will happen when someone working on the development branch gets a major new feature developed in the long six week time frame that others are working on the polish?
One faction will say, "Don't commit any new features until the next major release after this one!" while another faction will say "This is too important to wait through endless patch releases and another major release cycle!" The temptation will be to "just risk a few bugs" for this "major new feature" by those who don't really see the value of the polish right now. The offense will be that "any new feature" will require more polish, patches, or in essence de-values the work the polish team has been doing. Great amounts of spite and venom will be launched at each side.
Set a firm, clear policy about what the polish window will be and about the firm exclusion of new functionality that's independent of any particular technology before this starts and make sure everyone knows what that policy is. Not setting a policy is bound to cause chaos. Setting and then breaking a policy is bound to drive off any future desire to work on future "polish" release work.
Don't let your anger show. Frustration is understandable, but showing it makes you harder to communicate with. If you want people to help, don't make snide remarks.