why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM

[Luis Villa]

On 1/3/07, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Thx Luis, I liked you mail. Some comments from my side:
>
> On 03.01.2007 09:59, Luis Villa wrote:
>  > [...]
>
> > * support: whether or not it is reasonable/sustainable, Ubuntu's
> > support policies for their non-LTS distros are more generous and more
> > sane (i.e., all backports, no new features[1]) than Fedora's, which is
> > a factor for someone like me who doesn't have much time to screw
> > around with installations, re-installations, new releases that
> > introduce new bugs, etc.
>
> Agreed. We always point people to RHEL or CentOS and I think that
> becomes more and more a problem, especially now that Legacy is dead.
>
> A Fedora LTS (two years? maybe the server parts ever three?) now and
> then (every second or third release?) from a new Fedora Legacy (needs a
> different name) would IMHO a nice solution.

I don't think the need (at least my need) is for a Fedora LTS;  I
merely ask for one *stable* release at a time that:

(1) doesn't get new features/new upstream releases
(2) upgrades cleanly to the next release with a simple command

If I have this, I can (as a hobbyist) reasonably rely on Fedora for
most of my needs with minimal pain between releases. Right now I can't
do that.

I understand that (2) is basically there; (1) is (AFAICT) definitely not.

(FWIW, I think it is unreasaonble to expect a true-community distro to
do real LTS-y stuff- most volunteers don't have the patience to do the
necessary backporting for the necessary length of time. (See Fedora
Legacy.) And it is obviously not reasonable to expect RH to pay for
anyone to do LTS-y stuff with Fedora.)

> > * QA: Ubuntu aggressively pushes people to use their development
> > branch and report problems, which leads to better, more stable final
> > releases. [...]
>
> Agreed. The biggest problem we have in this regard IMHO is that we
> always communicate "you can't get to stable release from rawhide or a
> test release". That scares people aways from the devel branch and the
> test releases. We should provide a clean solution so people at least can
> get from test3 to stable.

No, you should provide a clean path from every package ver X to every
package ver X+1. Period. That is what Debian has done since time
basically immemorial, and what Ubuntu does. Clean upgrades from only
test 3 means that you only get good testing after test 3- again,
insufficient for real quality. You need testing of the latest code
*every day* to get the best quality.

Let me be clear- I feel that quality is one of the biggest possible
advantages free software can have over proprietary software,
specifically because you can have hundreds or thousands of people
testing the latest code every day. If you're not taking advantage of
that, you're throwing away one of the biggest advantages we have over
proprietary software. And I think Fedora currently does that, in the
main.

Luis