Fedora Core 5 Test 3 Slip

[Philippe Rigault]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 17:39 -0500, Jeremy Katz wrote:

> Although I hate to do it, it looks like we're going to have to slip
> Fedora Core 5 test3 by a week.  There is an ABI change in the gcc/glibc
> stack that requires a rebuild of the entire distribution.  Given that,
> there is no way that we'll be able to make a freeze date of Monday.  So,
> test3 will now freeze on Monday, 13 February with a release date of
> Monday, 20 February.  
> 
> We'll adjust the final schedule sometime next week based on the progress
> of the rebuilding efforts.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jeremy

I add my voice to the list of users that care more about quality than strict 
adherence to arbitrary dates.

I also very much hope that this will be an opportunity for re-assessing the 
relevance of March 15 as the release date for FC5-final, which I see a the 
worst possible choice in March, given the following release dates:
March 15	GNOME-2.14, koffice-1.5
March 17	KDE-3.5.2

These would make Fecora Core 5 labeled as both "obsolete" and "unstable" if it 
ships an old KDE and a development version of GCC and GNOME. I care about 
general users and public perception here, since I am among the rare users 
that do not depend on any of the packaged desktops in Fedora Core (I do not 
use GNOME and I package KDE on my own).

I am also very concerned about the delay in the release of GCC-4.1 (no release 
candidate yet), expecting FC5-final to include a compiler that has a wide 
level of exposure to testing. Having GCC-4.1-cvs-xxx would make users 
uncomfortable, and without bringing back the old RedHat ghost of gcc-2.96, I 
remind you that FC4 was released with a compiler blacklisted by the KDE 
project, which incidentally was one of the reasons for me and my institution 
to skip FC4 altogether and stay with FC3 until FC5 is released. 

So please take the time to think about this. Fedora Core can be leading edge 
with less bleeding.

Best regards,

Philippe Rigault