Why I left FL [LWN.net]

Why I left FL

Posted Oct 19, 2006 13:33 UTC (Thu) by tseaver (subscriber, #1544)
Parent article: An empty legacy

I was helping QA packages for FL up until July, when they dropped support for the release I cared about (FC1). The ironic bit that they dropped the older relases (RH7.3, RH9, FC1, FC2) in order to free up resources to focus on the more recent FC releases; hovever, many (most?) of their active volunteers were participating precisely in order to extend the lifetime of the older ones.

I think the 6 month upgrade cycle is workable only for desktop users, who can and should be encouraged to backup and reinstall, rather than trying to keep the older version going.

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Migration

Posted Oct 19, 2006 14:26 UTC (Thu) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link]

... desktop users, who can and should be encouraged to backup and reinstall ...

Except that there is much too little support, and almost no testing, for this migration strategy. Which hidden files in the $HOME directory (.gnome2, .nautilus, .mozilla, ...) should be carried over? Which should not? What about the /etc directory? The transition between gnome-desktop versions has been particularly rocky at times in the past.

Some applications provide internal migration, but mostly these assume simultaneous access to both the old and the new, and the migration assistance is not available once the new has been established. If you or the program don't get it right the first time, then it often becomes a morass.

Targeted support?

Posted Oct 19, 2006 23:53 UTC (Thu) by pjhacnau (subscriber, #4223) [Link]

I would have thought the people running FL would have checked with the volunteers as to what they wanted before arbitarily cutting off the preferred versions :-(

Maybe, if FL is to survive/be resurrected/etc it could do something closer to Ubuntu's approach to long-term support; say get the people actually _doing_ the support to agree on specific versions to support. E.g "Forget FC2,3,4 - we support FC1 and FC6, and we drop FC1 for FC(X > 6) when enough people are happy with it.

Targeted support?

Posted Oct 20, 2006 2:57 UTC (Fri) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link]

Two items here:
1. ubuntu has a team of paid people doing the LTS
2. So far we've not actually seen ubuntu do this. When they actually start maintaining a distro 2 and 3 years after its been released THEN we can start talking about it. However, seeing as they haven't had to do it yet it's all pure conjecture about what they may or may not be able to do.

Targeted support?

Posted Oct 20, 2006 4:39 UTC (Fri) by pjhacnau (subscriber, #4223) [Link]

I think use of the 'U' word distracted you from what I was suggesting :-)
I wasn't suggesting "copy Ubuntu" - merely using the fact that they don't aim to LTS every release as a starting point for the idea.

Restating the idea without the 'U' word, it goes something like this:

1) If you rely mostly on volunteers, you piss them off at your peril.
2) With limited resources, maybe you shouldn't be trying to support every FC release.
3) Given 1) and 2) why not try working out, with said volunteers, which subset of FC releases should be given Legasy support.