Tim: >> One of the dislikes I have with Fedora *is* the release schedule. >> There'll be a release around a certain date, ready or not, sensible or >> not. A new release comes up around the time the last one has many of >> the bugs ironed out, yet the new release is so radically different that >> you can't take advantage of the information gleaned over the last one. >> It won't be a fixed version of the prior release, it'll be a different >> version. It's case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Paul Howarth: > Taking it as read that Fedora is a distribution that tries to keep up > with upstream releases, how long would you suggest the interval > between releases be? The longer you leave it, the more different it's > going to be. When it's ready. When it works. When something is a significant improvement over a prior release to justify a whole new OS. There's zero value in bringing a product out on a certain date regardless of its operating condition, and from some points of view, there's *negative* value in doing so. There's a significant advantage in having a long-lived OS, which allows programmers to build for a known goal. Some program development is quite long-term, and to have the underlying system changed on you, several times, might well mean that you just can't be stuffed developing for it. It'd be different if there was a usable system standard that worked across all distros, but they're just about all different and require custom implementations. I much preferred how my old Amiga worked, I had the same OS on it for many years, it did its job well, and didn't need replacing. I updated *applications* when I felt like it, and that was all I needed to do. Remember how older, Red Hat Linux, releases used to have longer lifes, with sub-versions before radical changes (e.g. 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3)? Where OS faults (supposedly) got fixed, before moving onto a new one. -- (Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
