Re: Confusing our users - who is supporting LTS?
On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 09:30:46AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 4:15 AM Sean Whitton wrote:
> >
> > On Tue 23 Oct 2018 at 05:06PM +0200, Markus Koschany wrote:
> > >
> > > In short: Make it very clear if you want to provide long-term support
> > > for your project. Talk to the LTS team in case you need help. Nobody is
> > > forced to do anything.
> >
> > This is a good idea, but ISTM the assumption should be that the
> > subproject does not participate unless it explicitly says that it does.
>
> This thread started because users have the opposite assumption. So I
> think it would be better to be explicit about support teams and
> timelines.
>
> --
> bye,
> pabs
>
> https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
>
I am guessing one of the other (incorrect) assumption users might make
is that the "LTS version" is preferred over other versions. That's how
LTS works for Linux and Ubuntu, for example. So, a user would rather
install Ubuntu 18.04 that is supported for 5 years than Ubuntu 18.10,
that is supported for 9 months. The same happens with Linux 4.14 versus
Linux 4.18.
I am not sure it's clear to users that all Debian stable versions would
have Long Term Support, because the releases are not *labeled* as LTS. I
know the wiki says:
"Debian Long Term Support (LTS) is a project to extend the lifetime of
*all* Debian stable releases to (at least) 5 years." (emphasis mine)
But I believe the table right below that would still confuse some users
that would understand that Jessie is supported by LTS, while Stretch is
not, even though there is a schedule column there.
Using the LTS term in a slightly different way than the "industry
standard" now means we need to spend a little more effort on users
education.
Should we:
1) Start calling the stable releases as LTS releases?
2) Say "supported by Security team" versus "supported by Freexian",
instead of just saying "supported by LTS"?
3) Stop using LTS as a "label" for oldstable releases?
4) Just advise users all the time that they should prefer the latest
stable release, as that is going to have the "latest term support"?
5) Is that not true anymore with Extended LTS and CIP?
Cascardo.
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