Re: Future release roadmap
On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 02:51:46PM +0000, Vogel, Steve wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We are planning resources to support our products running on Debian and would like to know an approximate timeline (through Q1 of 2017) of releases. We understand stable version 8.1 was released in June. What guidance should we use to plan support for stable 8.2. and stable 8.3? In general how frequently do these releases come out?
>
> Many thanks for any planning guidance you can provide.
>
> Steve Vogel
> Program Manager, Data Center Group
> Intel Corporation
> 780 Fifth Avenue, Suite 140
> King of Prussia, PA 19406
> Steve.vogel@intel.com<mailto:Steve.vogel@intel.com>
> Office: 609-953-5342
> Cell: 609-828-9360
> [cid:image002.jpg@01D051BE.2FFB2A50]
>
>
Speaking purely personally - as an individual Debian developer - but explicitly NOT on behalf of the release team or the wider project as a whole.
On average, lately a Debian major release - where major is 7, 8 - comes out about once every two years and there's normally at least one year of support beyond that.
In that period, there are wrap up releases which include security fixes etc. about once a quarter. The major version is still 8, for example, and the point releases
merely wrap up the fixes that you would normally get by updating regularly plus a few fixes if e.g. it becomes necessary to remove a package from the distribution altogether.
By way of example: the prior stable distribution of Debian - Debian 7 codename Wheezy - is about to get a point release, though it is no longer the primary
stable release. In three years, you might expect to see 8-10 individual point releases.
At the same time, 8 - Jessie - will receive an update to 8.2 or so the plans are being arranged at the moment.
For Q1 17 - We'll hopefully have Debian 9 - Stretch - so 8 will be oldstable. 7 will be oldoldstable.
There are also attempts to prolong support for older Debian versions using the LTS name. Such significantly extended lifespans may come at a cost in that it
may not be possible to maintain as wide a spread of packages as when that version was first released - Debian is volunteer maintained and there's only so much
effort to go around. As others have said, talk to the release team.
For future reference: the second of the first couple of Alpha releases of the installer for Debian 9 has been produced within the last couple of weeks - as such,
we're probably 18-24 months away from release of Debian 9 Stretch as a finished article, based on prior experience - though that's a time frame that may change
significantly.
All the best
AndyC
[amacater@galactic.demon.co.uk / amacater@debian.org]
>
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