I think you misunderstand. I'm moving to Mepis so I have both a stable *and* current supported KDE desktop with an upgrade path that will lead to at least one more stable and current supported KDE desktop over the next couple three years.
I don't want KDE3.5 support for the next three years, my concerns are about current and stable release availability over the next three years... something that won't likely be seen out of Kubuntu for the very reasons I cited. K/X/Ubuntu releases appear to now trend toward good releases in April and crap releases in October. I don't have a problem with Kubuntu's next release not having LTS support, what I do have a problem with is the fact that the Kubuntu team is jumping to KDE4 and releasing that on the last stable Ubuntu base we'll likely see until April of '09.... guaranteeing the users not one, not two, but THREE lousy Kubuntu releases in a row, with the potential for five depending on the timing of the KDE4 dev team and when it goes to 4.1. This is leaving the users who want to stay with Kubuntu but desiring stability over bleeding edge one option: Feisty. Even if Feisty were to get security patches beyond next October, there's no way Kubuntu Feisty is going to last and meet the needs of its end users for that long.
The move to Mepis from Kubuntu has nothing to do with commercial support, long term support, or which version of KDE is used. It has everything to do with the release cycle timing, quality of releases during those cycles, and the dev team's priority on a major distribution to potentially forgo a stable release to their user base for what is looking like will be at least two years because they abandoned KDE3.5 one release too soon. Even if the KDE3.5 repos stay available for Hardy, they're shoddy and abandoned builds that will be identical to the Gutsy release that the Kubuntu team apparently refuses to support or bugfix anymore. This move is leaving Kubuntu users with an unstable desktop upgrade path for far too long, and that's what is going to drive me to Mepis and likely the rest of the user base away to other distros.
Well, I guess this cinches it... I'm migrating to Mepis.
I've been using Kubuntu since the Dapper release, and the Gutsy upgrade has been a miserable couple months for me and has made me wish I'd stayed on Feisty. Now the Kubuntu team's completely dropped any KDE 3.5 support and there won't be a LTS release for KDE users in April. It's going to be at least another year before KDE4 has all the bugs worked out and is stable enough for us power users to truly start adopting it, and judging from the established Ubuntu release cycle, the next release in October after the LTS is going to be a cutting edge, unstable nightmare when combined with a still possibly unstable KDE4 release that'll still be missing features that won't reappear until the 4.1 release.
This means Feisty is likely going to lose security update support before we see another Kubuntu release stable and solid enough to use under the KDE4 base. We're likely looking at at least a year and a half if the KDE team can get 4.1 pushed out before about February/March 2009 for lockdown on features for Jizzing Jackalope or whatever, and if they miss that window, it'll probably be closer to two and a half before there's another solid Kubuntu release if Gutsy's any indication to their commitment to bugfixing a release before their next LTS comes out. I'm sorry, I could maybe cool my heels waiting for another stable software release for a server until April 2010, but not my desktop. Desktop software needs to stay current as much as it needs to be stable.
I have a feeling that since Mepis 7 just released and in light of this news, Canonical's going to likely lose most of their KDE userbase to Mepis over the next year or so. Shame that.
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I think you misunderstand. I'm moving to Mepis so I have both a stable *and* current supported KDE desktop with an upgrade path that will lead to at least one more stable and current supported KDE desktop over the next couple three years.
I don't want KDE3.5 support for the next three years, my concerns are about current and stable release availability over the next three years... something that won't likely be seen out of Kubuntu for the very reasons I cited. K/X/Ubuntu releases appear to now trend toward good releases in April and crap releases in October. I don't have a problem with Kubuntu's next release not having LTS support, what I do have a problem with is the fact that the Kubuntu team is jumping to KDE4 and releasing that on the last stable Ubuntu base we'll likely see until April of '09.... guaranteeing the users not one, not two, but THREE lousy Kubuntu releases in a row, with the potential for five depending on the timing of the KDE4 dev team and when it goes to 4.1. This is leaving the users who want to stay with Kubuntu but desiring stability over bleeding edge one option: Feisty. Even if Feisty were to get security patches beyond next October, there's no way Kubuntu Feisty is going to last and meet the needs of its end users for that long.
The move to Mepis from Kubuntu has nothing to do with commercial support, long term support, or which version of KDE is used. It has everything to do with the release cycle timing, quality of releases during those cycles, and the dev team's priority on a major distribution to potentially forgo a stable release to their user base for what is looking like will be at least two years because they abandoned KDE3.5 one release too soon. Even if the KDE3.5 repos stay available for Hardy, they're shoddy and abandoned builds that will be identical to the Gutsy release that the Kubuntu team apparently refuses to support or bugfix anymore. This move is leaving Kubuntu users with an unstable desktop upgrade path for far too long, and that's what is going to drive me to Mepis and likely the rest of the user base away to other distros.
Well, I guess this cinches it... I'm migrating to Mepis.
I've been using Kubuntu since the Dapper release, and the Gutsy upgrade has been a miserable couple months for me and has made me wish I'd stayed on Feisty. Now the Kubuntu team's completely dropped any KDE 3.5 support and there won't be a LTS release for KDE users in April. It's going to be at least another year before KDE4 has all the bugs worked out and is stable enough for us power users to truly start adopting it, and judging from the established Ubuntu release cycle, the next release in October after the LTS is going to be a cutting edge, unstable nightmare when combined with a still possibly unstable KDE4 release that'll still be missing features that won't reappear until the 4.1 release.
This means Feisty is likely going to lose security update support before we see another Kubuntu release stable and solid enough to use under the KDE4 base. We're likely looking at at least a year and a half if the KDE team can get 4.1 pushed out before about February/March 2009 for lockdown on features for Jizzing Jackalope or whatever, and if they miss that window, it'll probably be closer to two and a half before there's another solid Kubuntu release if Gutsy's any indication to their commitment to bugfixing a release before their next LTS comes out. I'm sorry, I could maybe cool my heels waiting for another stable software release for a server until April 2010, but not my desktop. Desktop software needs to stay current as much as it needs to be stable.
I have a feeling that since Mepis 7 just released and in light of this news, Canonical's going to likely lose most of their KDE userbase to Mepis over the next year or so. Shame that.