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Mark Shuttleworth Proposes Delaying next Ubuntu
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Mar 11, 2006 04:41 PM
from the waiting-on-the-duck dept.
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.
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Mark Shuttleworth Proposes Delaying next Ubuntu
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Error (Score:5, Informative)
Delay in Debian Derived Distro?? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.onlineconfessional.com/confess | Last Journal: Tuesday June 06 2006, @02:10PM)
Where's the bleeding edge code? Where's the "It compiled this morning let's push it out" mentality that's so common with Debian based Distros??
I'm astounded and saddened. Microsoft has updates coming out weekly. It can't be good for Ubuntu if it loses the "update war" with Microsoft. If you lose the update war, everything else is down hill from there.
Re:Delay in Debian Derived Distro?? (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Sunday December 04 2005, @12:42PM)
Well, looking at Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, looking at Vista (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday December 22 2003, @07:23PM)
Question? Answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely.
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://jdhutchin.ath.cx/)
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.deansas.org/)
EasyUbuntu is better and much more in keeping with the Ubuntu way http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/ [freecontrib.org]
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
See the FAQ: http://www.dvdcca.org/faq.html [dvdcca.org]
Michael
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://jdhutchin.ath.cx/)
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:4, Informative)
(http://moranar.com.ar/ | Last Journal: Sunday June 08 2003, @04:58PM)
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3675.html)
So tell them the truth: the technology exists, but U.S. law makes it risky to distribute it.
Re:Question? Answer. (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.linuxtrent.it)
Fluendo has released a licensed MP3 plugin [fluendo.com] for the GStreamer framework. It's already in Debian unstable, and I'd say Ubuntu probably will include it.
What does Ubuntu offer that Debian doesn't? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What does Ubuntu offer that Debian doesn't? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.p10link.net/plugwash/)
a reasonablly predictable release schedule (a bit too fast for my liking in fact) and a bit of polish for some desktop related stuff.
as such it fills the gap between debian stable (slow unpredictable release process) and debian testing (constant upgrade treadmill with little in the way of security support)
What can be done with Ubuntu that I can't do with Debian?
if you feel like supporting debian testing/unstable then nothing. And with sarge for a while probablly not much.
However in the couple of years prior to the sarge release running woody was becoming more and more untenable as recent software simply wasn't getting tested with stuff that old. Sarge is ok for the moment but unless debian can get thier house in order and come up with a release every few years at least then we are going to run into this issue again.
Re:What does Ubuntu offer that Debian doesn't? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.neverwhen.net/)
Re:What does Ubuntu offer that Debian doesn't? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://andersman.org/)
I used to use Debian on my laptop, but later switched to Ubuntu. Why?
It supports more hardware out-of-the-box, and it has newer GNOME packages than Debian. Things that I had to install in Debian (the touchpad, etc) were already installed.
I wouldn't use Ubuntu on a server though, everything I can do in Ubuntu I can do in Debian. Installing a Debian desktop is just more hassle than installing Ubuntu.
The testers seem to agree (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday September 25 2006, @01:19PM)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=142536 [ubuntuforums.org]
Dapper is coming along nicely, but there are a number of bugs that might not get the attention they deserve if Dapper is released on schedule.
Their Flight 5 CD is out. It should be quite stable for normal use.
"Linux for human beings" (Score:5, Informative)
If Ubuntu wants to be "Linux for human beings" it needs all the polish it can get after that experience.
Keep up the good work guys.
Re:"Linux for human beings" (Score:5, Informative)
(http://uspoliticsandelections.blogspot.com/)
The only real issue was the 5.10 didn't handle ALPS Touchpads well at all. It was almost unusable as a result.
Fortunately, the Dapper betas have fixed that, and Ubuntu really is the most usable easy distribution for this box. OpenSuSe and Fedora both had significantly greater issues (either with suspend or the touchpad, or both).
Re:"Linux for human beings" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Linux for human beings" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Linux for human beings" (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.p10link.net/plugwash/)
config.sys and autoexec.bat really belong to dos and in the dos days there wasn't exactly a lot of choice on what you ran on your IBM compatible PC.
Blame X (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~Stalyn/journal | Last Journal: Wednesday September 28 2005, @08:10PM)
Re:"Linux for human beings" (Score:4, Informative)
(http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll414.xml | Last Journal: Tuesday January 03 2006, @11:11PM)
I actually think this much to do with the good work done by the x.org folks, as well as work done by
For example, Debian "stable" still uses Xfree86, and Xfree86 couldn't detect it's left nut without editing the Xfree86 conf file.
Fedora at this time used an experimental version of X.org , wheras Ubuntu had a polished & more stable version.
RedHat used a stable version of X.org (maybe it was still Xfree86), but the config tools screwed up the config so badly taht X wouldn't start.
Suse had some propietary tools which mucked up the display.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday February 13 2006, @07:11PM)
To me, this feels basically like delaying an extra security heavy distro 6 weeks to implement verify a new security protocol implementation works correctly.
Support/enterprise (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://venganza.org/)
Ubuntu is Debian, Debian is Ubuntu... (Score:3, Funny)
Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.savagewar.co.uk/)
Re:Really... (Score:4, Interesting)
d'uh. (Score:5, Insightful)
there are hundreds of distros already, and the only thing they all lack is polish, so yes.
what's the hurry?
YES! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Out of sync (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.miscz.pl/)
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.
Absolutely it's OK! (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?"
Yes, it's worth it. FTA, this isn't a release aimed at the "average Linux user." It's meant for enterprises, and it's important to get it right. It's something that can be a big point for the adoption of Linux in the desktop workspace, that this is a distro which looks good, has a wide range of language options, and has support. Spending a rather trivial amount of time getting it fully ready is what should be done, rather than try to hit an arbitrary "release date", only to, a few weeks later, do the MS routine of "here's the update package, Service Pack X".
Not just polish... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Not just polish... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~njh/)
Software delay? (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~nurb432/ | Last Journal: Friday August 27 2004, @03:24PM)
It's worth delaying (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.getogg.org/)
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.
Re:worth delaying for WPA support alone (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.drao.nrc.ca/~rreid/)
What if 6.04 (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://neonstream.us/)
Compile kernel modules for dapper (Score:4, Insightful)
Value of Polish vs. New Features (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Great (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://johan.kiviniemi.name/)
I think that's great. Just a while ago Dapper got a new urine-colored Human theme [ubuntuforums.org], and - all due respect to the people who put their efforts into making Ubuntu better - frankly, it's just horrible. If the release is delayed, they have a lot better change to fix the theme.
Another thing i'd really like to see in dapper is the new NetworkManager 0.6 [gnome.org] with its WPA and OpenVPN goodness. "Automatic network detection and configuration management [launchpad.net]" is high-priority target for dapper, and the new features in n-m 0.6 are needed by many users.
Please. PLEASE! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://nojailforpot.com/)
Yes. We're not talking a year, here. A month is inconsequential. The question is silly.
And, with a distro where being "user-friendly" is a primary feature, it's all the more important to make these minor adjustments in release dates for improvements that are fundamental to the underlying concept.
Holy Crap! (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.dangercollie.com/music/)
Give them more time; they've earned it (Score:5, Interesting)
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+spec
I'll refrain from Debian comparisons, as they're not needed to communicate what stellar work the team has done here. Point is, Ubuntu users and admins ought to support this delay, for the same reason I support Ubuntu..