Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process [LWN.net]

From:		=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ga=EBl_Duval?= <gduval-AT-mandrakesoft.com>
To:		"LWN.net" <lwn-AT-lwn.net>
Subject:		Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process
Date:		Mon, 02 Feb 2004 18:19:20 +0100

Altadena, CA; Paris, France; February, 2nd 2004 - MandrakeSoft today 
announced a major evolution in the way that future Mandrake Linux 
distributions will be engineered and released. The purpose of this new 
development process is to provide the highest level of new features, 
as well as maximizing the quality of new products. This new release 
road map will be effective for the upcoming Mandrake Linux 10.0.

The old development way:

Since 1999, Mandrake Linux has been developed through the "Cooker" 
development process. Cooker is an experimental distribution that is 
constantly being updated and modified. Cooker is publicly available in 
real time through a network of FTP mirrors, CVS servers, translation 
tools, a Wiki website, and various mailing lists. Currently more than 
1,000 contributors are involved in this process.

Traditionally, when a new Mandrake Linux release is approaching, the 
state of Cooker is frozen and goes through a Beta/Release Candidate 
cycle that leads to a final release which is then provided as a free 
Download version and also used for commercial retail Packs. This 
development scheme provides a dynamic and innovative development 
process. With this system, Mandrake Linux became one of the first 
Linux distribution to introduce a partitioning utility during the 
installation process, a journalized file system, dynamical device 
management, the CUPS printing system, and so on. All of these 
developments were introduced and tested in Cooker before being 
selected as new features for the official final release.

Although this development scheme is an improvement compared to other 
traditional development models, it still can be improved. Even though 
Cooker boasts a large testing audience and long beta-testing cycles, 
it remains impossible to test all of the various hardware and software 
configurations that are available on today's complex PCs. As a result, 
unresolved issues are regularly discovered *after* an official release 
when the new product is most widely used. Even worse, critical issues 
may then be discovered, such as the LG CD-ROM drive incompatibility 
problem in Mandrake Linux 9.2, which was discovered and reported only 
after the final release was made. After each new release an errata 
page (which contains problems and resolutions) is soon made available, 
so it's often useful to wait 1 or 2 months after an official release 
to be aware of all identified issues.

As a result, MandrakeSoft has decided to extend its Cooker Open Source 
development model to improve the quality level of its products. The 
new development scheme will answer the needs of both those who want 
all the best innovations as soon as available, even at the risk of 
minor glitches, and those who don't mind to wait and prefer an 
improved reliability.

The new release road map:

The spirit of the new development road map is to keep providing a 
release similar to what was released in the past, which will now be 
called "Mandrake Linux Community." This is the regular Mandrake Linux 
distribution, based on Cooker, which goes through the traditional QA 
process. But from now on, a second 'rock-solid' version titled 
"Mandrake Linux Official" will be released two or three months after 
Mandrake Linux Community. This new version will include all Erratas 
applied to the initial release, and as a result will be particularly 
solid and problem-free. The Community release will be ideal for those 
who want the 'latest and greatest' features as soon as available, 
while the second release will be perfect for those who prefer to wait 
and avoid any potential glitches.

What follows is the development process for our next major release, 
Mandrake Linux 10.0:

1) After the traditional debugging of several Beta and Release 
Candidates, the final version of "Mandrake Linux 10.0 Community" will 
be released in February/March. This version will be available for 
download and as a DVD-set through e-Commerce.

2) Then a Mandrake Linux 10.0 Stable branch will be opened, based on 
Mandrake Linux 10.0 Community. Security updates and bug fixes will be 
applied to this tree and will be publicly available in real time.

3) Two or three months later, in April/May, "Mandrake Linux 10.0 
Official" will be created from the Mandrake 10.0 Stable branch. It 
will then be packaged for several products such as the Mandrake Linux 
PowerPack. Mandrake 10.0 Official ISO images will also be available 
for all contributors and Club Members; then, after a short delay, 
Mandrake Linux 10.0 Official Download Edition will be made available 
on public FTP mirrors.

Regarding product support:

# During the time between Mandrake 10.0 Community and Mandrake 10.0 
Official, all updates will be available for download through the 
official Mandrake 10.0 stable branch.
# Beginning with the release of Mandrake 10.0 Official, updates will 
be available as usual from the official update tree and will apply 
both to Mandrake 10.0 Community & Mandrake 10.0 Official.

Please note that this schedule is subject to change, depending on its 
completion and results.

Additional information is available:

# The home of the "Cooker" community:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/cookerdevel.php3

# The Mandrake Linux Cooker Wiki:
http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/wiki

# Mandrake Linux 10.0 Beta page:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/100beta.php3

# Mandrake Linux Bugzilla:
http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/

About MandrakeSoft

MandrakeSoft is the publisher of the popular Mandrake Linux operating 
system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems 
available. The company offers its enterprise, government and 
educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source 
software and related services. MandrakeSoft products are available in 
more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from 
Mandrake Store.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several 
countries, MandrakeSoft has been awarded many times for quality and 
the technical innovation of its products. "Born on the Internet" in 
late 1998, MandrakeSoft has established headquarters in the U.S.A. and 
in France. MandrakeSoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marche Libre 
(Euroclear code: 4477.PA; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market 
(stock symbol MDKFF).

(Log in to post comments)

Bah. What is the world coming to?

Posted Feb 2, 2004 22:21 UTC (Mon) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

It would seem that you did. :-) I would personally call it a technical jargon word within the realm of Linux distributions, and therefore perfectly at home in a press release from Mandrake.

Bah. What is the world coming to?

Posted Feb 2, 2004 22:54 UTC (Mon) by bbolli (guest, #19153) [Link]

> I would personally call it a technical jargon word

No, it's plain wrong. "Errata" is the plural form of "erratum", so "erratas" doesn't make sense.

*SCNR*

Erratae

Posted Feb 3, 2004 8:41 UTC (Tue) by uwaucs (subscriber, #6160) [Link]

Erratas signifies a collection of mere errata. Now, enough of this erratacism on a public board, thank you!

Erratas, erratae

Posted Feb 3, 2004 10:23 UTC (Tue) by migloo (guest, #12198) [Link]

"Erratas" is just one more Mandrake erratum.
and "Erratae" an absolute horror.

Errare humanum est, persevare diabolicum.

Erratae

Posted Feb 7, 2004 14:32 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

> Erratas signifies a collection of mere errata.

Exactly (or perhaps erratae as in the title?).

Altho (and yes, I'm deliberately using the "e-spelling" version), Mdk DID still
get it wrong as used.

As mentioned, "errata" is already plural. However, as commonly used within
the community, it refers to a (singular) list of multiple "erratum" as found in a
single release. Therefore, within context, "erratas" could be correctly used to
refer to multiple such lists, as when referring to the errata pages for multiple
serial releases, or for the errata pages for multiple products, as possible when
comparing multiple distributions.

Thus, the usage would be referring to a plural collection of singular lists of
"errata", the plural form of "erratum", since each list would potentially contain
multiple single-item error/notes, together with fixes/workarounds, if available.

I'd consider that usage correct. However, that's not how it was used in this
press release. How Mdk used it here is incorrect, as it still refers to only the
single "errata" list or list page, for a single release, not a collection of such
pages, covering multiple releases or across multiple products or distributions.
Thus, they are only referring to a single "errata" list, and "errata" remains the
correct term, with the sort of super-plural term they used therefore incorrect.

Compare usage to multiple "classes" of students, with each "class" being both
plural and singular in that it refers to a single group of individuals. So, I'd
say, with erratas/errata/erratum, tho (e-spelling again) here, its the same root
at all three levels, instead of having a different root for the "list" and
"accoumlation of lists" level.

Of course, lists/list/list-item is the same sort of thing..

Duncan

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 10:00 UTC (Tue) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

I was thinking the same thing. With time, it might be that only a minority of users take the
community edition, while most (all those with LG cd-roms...) will wait for the official. And
then we are back to square zero.

There is one major difference though. While the release candidates have been only for
testing, this community edition will actually be supported by *erratas* (-: That means that
installing it, and using it, and updating it, you will end up with the same official edition that
comes out later and without re-installing or otherwise putting too much effort into it. So it
might be appealing to a larger audience than the release candidates have been.

henrik

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 13:01 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I think your discussing a theory that has been disproved long ago.

Who runs Debian "stable"? I'd say the percentage breakdown of stable/testing/unstable is probably 5/25/70. I've always run "unstable", I'd hate to downgrade to "testing" :)

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 16:29 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

I've always run "unstable", I'd hate to downgrade to "testing" :)

The gap between "testing" and "unstable" is way too big. I run "testing", but I use icewm and install Firebird / Thunderbird from a Mozilla subscription disk. But most Gnome and KDE users would probably not find "testing" to be a very attractive alternative.

If Mandrake can keep the gap down to two or three months, the "official" release might be nice. If it starts lagging behind by a year or more like Debian, I expect it will wither on the vine.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 18:45 UTC (Tue) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link]

if you are talking about debian devlopers then I would gree with your breakdown, but elsewhere running anything other then stable is a sure way to risk your job.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 3, 2004 19:40 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Running unstable has never caused me any problems at work. Managers only know that I run "that gnu thing", and the local techs have no issues with it. Most debian users I know run unstable, except for sysops who use a testing/stable mix depending on how important the box is.

Ah well, that's just my experience. I don't know of any respectable data to back up either side.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 4, 2004 13:15 UTC (Wed) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

I think your discussing a theory that has been disproved long ago.

I actually don't think we can truly compare Debians process with this one. With Debian, testing is a slightly more stable version of unstable and the stable thing is in it's own universe. With Mandrake, the community edition will be a slightly rougher version of the Official edition while Cooker will be only a developers toy. And let's repeat the fact that Mandrake Community is a supported release, that Debian testing is not. So really this is more like Debian's system upside down, Debian has two unstable versions, Mandrake two stable versions.

But I see what you might be saying, that if there are people who are willing to run Debians testing and even unstable, there should be no shortage of people running Mandrake Community.

Other than that, if nobody runs Debian stable (and I sure don't since I run mdk:-), why does it exist at all?

henrik

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 4, 2004 15:35 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

This gets messy. Debian actually has 4 package categories now. ("experimental" being the fourth)

There isn't a whole "experimental" distribution though, it's more like a testing area or a pre-unstable category for individual packages or groups of packages. This change happened in 2003.

So now, "unstable" is for packages that are known to work, so "unstable" is tested and quite stable, much like Mandrake "Community", except that "unstable" isn't officially supported (but it is supported by it's package maintainers).

"testing" is like Mandrake "Official" and *is* supported AFAIK. (security updates etc.)

"stable" is for boxes that you intend to install on the moon.

So 99% of users can ignore "experimental" and "stable". Newbies or people that need very high reliability should choose "testing", for everyone else "unstable" is best.

Mandrakes system improves on Debian in one aspect: they've decided not to bother supporting moon based installations.

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 6, 2004 11:03 UTC (Fri) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Ok, thanks for the update. I used to follow Debian rather closely once, but it seems I've
let my interests in that direction fade a little in the last year. From next week on I will
again be administering a Debian box, the current plan is to go with the
"moon-distribution" :-)

henrik

Significant change in Mandrake Linux Development Process

Posted Feb 4, 2004 14:18 UTC (Wed) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

It's comparable to Debian to a certain degree, but the match is not very close.

First, if I understood it correctly, the stable and the "community" version will actually be identical 90% of the time, the only exception being twice a year a new community-version comes out, and after shaking out the bugs, "community+bugfixes" gets released as the "official".

Secondly, Debian "Stable" is commonly refered to as "stale", I'm not saying it's good or it's bad, but the fact is Debian Stable tends to at all times be rather far away from the bleeding edge, thus Debian is probably unique in being the only distribution where basically noone uses, or even recommends on using, the "stable" version.

Least of all home-users and enthusiast, but even for a sever, stable is in many cases inapropriate. (and in other cases where stability is everything and you need no features not present a year or two ago it's perfectly apropriate)

Everyone I know who use Debian runs unstable or testing. And they recommend it to newbies too; "Don't use stable, that'll only give you a dated impression".