Will Ubuntu Linux Switch to a Monthly Release Cycle?

09.09.2011

"So you're an Ubuntu developer working on features for the upcoming release, you don't have anywhere near as much time as you'd expect to actually do the development work," Remnant wrote. "What happens if you're replacing something that works with something completely new? Can't you just target a later release, and work continually until the feature freeze of that release?

"It turns out that you can't," he explained. "There is an incredible emphasis on the Ubuntu planning process of targeting features for particular releases. This is the exact thing you're not supposed to do with a time-based release schedule."

One result of that schedule, Remnant asserted, is that "three out of four of your releases are really just unstable previews of that final fourth release." That, in turn, is a problem because "developer time is wasted; because user time is wasted; because user confidence is lost."

'There Would Be No Codenames'

As a possible solution to those and other related problems, Remnant proposes switching Ubuntu to a rapid monthly release process, beginning with the due in October.