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Mark Shuttleworth Proposes Delaying next Ubuntu

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the waiting-on-the-duck dept.

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.

11 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. Well, looking at Vista by tlacuache · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How long exactly has Longhorn, er, Vista been pushed off? Six weeks pales in comparison.

  2. Question? Answer. by ImaNihilist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?

    Absolutely.

    1. Re:Question? Answer. by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 5, Insightful
      But the people I hand the disks out to wonder why the hell this "Linux" thing can't even play their MP3s!

      So tell them the truth: the technology exists, but U.S. law makes it risky to distribute it.

      --
      http://outcampaign.org/
  3. Well... by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!
  4. Support/enterprise by slavemowgli · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  5. Really... by Clazzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  6. d'uh. by Yahweh+Doesn't+Exist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >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?

  7. YES! by geddes · · Score: 4, Insightful
    One of the reasons, imho, that Blizzard's games are always so good, is that they are not afraid to delay them. They test and test and tweak and tweak and when they game comes out, it is of the highest quality. Blizzard is admirable because they respect that programming is an art that can't be rushed. Most companies rush their products so they can start generating revenue.

    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.

  8. Out of sync by miscz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. Not just polish... by BaltikaTroika · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that almost everybody would agree that a little more time spent making a product better is a good thing.

    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. :) Any steps, no matter how small, to appeal to the Chinese/Korean/Japanese markets will probably pay off well.

    Not that it all matters to me, though... I use SUSE. :)

    BaltikaTroika

  10. Compile kernel modules for dapper by Fafnir_b · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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...