From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 78331CC4 for ; Tue, 4 Sep 2018 22:06:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-qt0-f175.google.com (mail-qt0-f175.google.com [209.85.216.175]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0F83B7FD for ; Tue, 4 Sep 2018 22:06:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-qt0-f175.google.com with SMTP id g53-v6so5853638qtg.10 for ; Tue, 04 Sep 2018 15:06:46 -0700 (PDT) To: Guenter Roeck , ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org References: <5c9c41b2-14f9-41cc-ae85-be9721f37c86@redhat.com> <2c3b5669-bf03-326e-e61a-73100c141857@roeck-us.net> From: Laura Abbott Message-ID: <71cd50f3-9cd8-9d88-b8f2-cb5eca1f1133@redhat.com> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 15:06:43 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <2c3b5669-bf03-326e-e61a-73100c141857@roeck-us.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Greg KH Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Stable trees and release time List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On 09/04/2018 02:49 PM, Guenter Roeck wrote: > On 09/04/2018 01:58 PM, Laura Abbott wrote: >> I'd like to start a discussion about the stable release cycle. >> >> Fedora is a heavy user of the most recent stable trees and we >> generally do a pretty good job of keeping up to date. As we >> try and increase testing though, the stable release process >> gets to be a bit difficult. We often run into the problem where >> release .Z is officially released and then .Z+1 comes >> out as an -rc immediately after. Given Fedora release processes, >> we haven't always finished testing .Z by the time .Z+1 comes >> out. What to do in this situation really depends on what's in >> .Z and .Z+1 and how stable we think things are. This usually >> works out fine but a) sometimes we guess wrong and should have >> tested .Z more b) we're only looking to increase testing. >> >> What I'd like to see is stable updates that come on a regular >> schedule with a longer -rc interval, say Sunday with >> a one week -rc period. I understand that much of the current >> stable schedule is based on Greg's schedule. As a distro >> maintainer though, a regular release schedule with a longer >> testing window makes it much easier to plan and deliver something >> useful to our users. It's also a much easier sell for encouraging >> everyone to pick up every stable update if there's a known >> schedule. I also realize Greg is probably reading this with a very >> skeptical look on his face so I'd be interested to hear from >> other distro maintainers as well. >> > > For my part, a longer -rc interval would not help or improve the > situation. Given the large number of security fixes, it would > actually make the situation worse: In many cases I could no longer > wait for a fix to be available in a release. Instead, I would have > to pick and pre-apply individual patches from a pending release. > Fedora does this already. We frequently carry patches which have not yet made it into a stable release. Sometimes they only stay around for one release but we've had ones that stayed around for multiple releases. > I like the idea of having (no more than) one release per week with > the exception of security fixes, but longer -rc intervals would be > problematic. > Security fixes are an interesting question. The problem is that not every security issue is actually equal and even patches that fix CVEs can cause regressions. > Guenter Thanks, Laura