Do we have any user data about what "stability" means to users and on what different levels that can be achieved? Is it about app versions such as MariaDB? is it about language runtime versions such as Node.js? is it about things like glibc? or kernel? Or does it need to be the whole distro as we have it today?

In case we don't find a uniform solution that would fit all those cases (== for the whole release as we know it today), focusing on those specific levels (modules? rings?! ;) ) might help with different approaches could help us at least a little bit. Well, considering there are some.

On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 12:37 AM Matthew Miller <mattdm@fedoraproject.org> wrote:

Hi everyone! Let's talk about something new and exciting. Since its
first release fifteen years ago, Fedora has had a 13-month lifecycle
(give or take). That works awesomely for many cases (like, hey, we're
all here), but not for everyone. Let's talk about how we might address
some of the users and use cases we're missing out on.

When I talk to people about this, I often get "hey, you should do LTS
or go to rolling releases.” As I've said before, on the surface that's
a weird thing to say, since the actual user impact of those two
different things is mostly _opposite_. So, digging in, it often really
means "I don't want the pain and fear of big OS upgrades".

We've addressed that in several ways: first, making upgrades better.
(Thanks everyone who has worked on that.) A Fedora release-to-release
update is normally not much more trouble than you might get some random
Tuesday with a rolling release. Second, we have some things like Fedora
Atomic Host and upcoming Fedora CoreOS and IoT which both implement a
rolling stream on top of the Fedora release base. And finally, there's
the coming-someday plans for gating Rawhide, making that a better
proposition for people who really want to live on the edge.

But there are some good cases for a longer lifecycle. For one thing,
this has been a really big blocker for getting Fedora shipped on
hardware. Second, there are people who really could be happily running
Fedora but since we don't check the tickbox, they don't even look at us
seriously. I'd love to change these things. To do that, we need
something that lasts for 36-48 months.

So, what would this look like? I have some ideas, but, really, there
are many possibilities. That's what this thread is for. Let's figure it
out. How would we structure repositories? How would we make sure we're
not overworked? How would we balance this with getting people new stuff
fast as well?




--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm@fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
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--

Adam Šamalík
---------------------------
Software Engineer
Red Hat