+1 to slowing down the release cycle. I think I can also say that on behalf of 4-5 of my lab mates as well. -- ben On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 10:06 PM, Ryan Gariepy < rgariepy@clearpathrobotics.com> wrote: > Hi Tully, > > Just wanted to note a +1 to slowing the release cycle down. > > -R > > > On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Tully Foote wrote: > >> * >> >> Hi Everyone, >> >> As a follow up to the survey we circulated last month I'd like to start a >> discussion of what the best timeline for ROS releases would be. >> >> As a reminder of the survey results see: >> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzNmzxy4pVGMZHd2b1BSWVlHVHM/edit >> >> We've had many discussions here at OSRF about these results and have come >> up with a few candidates which seem reasonable. I'll outline the logic >> behind how we got to them and would like to hear what you think. >> >> Starting out based on the survey. We had a majority of respondants >> prefering a 12 month release cycle and a plurality of respondants >> preferring a 24 month support period. These two number nicely allign with >> our current practice of having two supported ROS distributions at a time >> with one ROS distribution in development, however just with a longer >> release cycle. This amount of parallel development is about all that we >> think we can support as a community. So based on this I think there's a >> relatively clear mandate to change the ROS release cycle to every 12 months >> with 24 months of support, allowing 12 months of overlap between releases >> for transition. >> >> We've put together a nice graphic see ros.svg >> >> Unfortunately the problem is not quite as simple as the above graphic >> shows as we need to build on top of other platforms. Ubuntu has recently >> updated their planned release cycle to support LTS for 5 years, but non-LTS >> releases for only 9 months while maintaining their 6 month release cycle. >> See: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases >> >> This can be seen in ubuntu.svg >> >> This change for Ubuntu unfortunately makes our nice clean plan above much >> harder as it is impossible to support a release for anywhere near close to >> 24 months on non-LTS Ubuntu distros. >> >> We started out be assuming we'd release ROS in the spring to coincide >> with the LTS Ubuntu Release. If we're planning a 1 year release cycle, the >> quick answer is that for the intervening 6 month Ubuntu Release the last >> ROS release is ported forward. This can be done with a minimal effort by >> following the Ubuntu by about 1 month, enabling a ROS release to be built >> against the current release and the upcoming pre-release Ubuntu. (Based on >> past experiences prebuilds of Ubuntu releases are available shortly after >> the previous release has come out.) With this basic outline we can release >> ROS each spring and support two Ubuntu distros each. >> >> In recognition of the fact that many users only use LTS on their robots >> we then thought to add a backport of the ROS release with LTS+2 to build on >> the LTS. However the fact that the LTS+2 release will also be built on the >> LTS+3 makes supporting this spanning set very hard because LTS+3 is usually >> the staging grounds for large changes to get into the next LTS release. >> >> To see this see graphic ubuntu_ros.svg >> >> To resolve this there are many options. We could consider dropping >> support for LTS+3 to resolve the large spanning set. Another option is to >> simply support the LTS Ubuntu Releases since the non LTS release cycles are >> now so short, making our 24 month support cycle much easier. >> >> >> You will note in this process that we have decreased the matrix of ROS vs >> Ubuntu packages. This is purposeful as we've identified supporting the >> large matrix of ROS vs Ubuntu distros as a significant burden on the >> community. Our sketch is laid out to support two major use cases, a stable >> developer who wants to stick to the LTS Ubuntu release and the cutting edge >> user who wants the latest version of ROS on the latest Ubuntu distro. >> >> Besides the provided Debian package it is always easily possible to build >> a ROS distribution from source. It only requires running a handful of >> commands. A complete build of desktop-full takes about 3-4 hours of >> compilation time on a recent Intel i7 machine. This is the workflow that >> every non-Ubuntu user uses which has been continuously improved as we have >> upgraded the core tools. >> >> And the last consideration is when should we release Hydro, we have close >> to half the packages for Hydro released and I know many of the remaining >> packages which were in the initial groovy release are preparing for the >> hydro release at the moment. From the considerations of synchronizing with >> Ubuntu LTS it seems like a good target for Indigo Igloo will be April/May >> 2014 leaving us 11 months from now. As a straw man for Hydro I'd propose >> July giving the Indigo cycle 9 months following Hydro 7 months to ease us >> into the 12 month cycle. >> >> Please let us know your thoughts? >> >> Tully >> >> * >> >> _______________________________________________ >> ros-users mailing list >> ros-users@code.ros.org >> https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > ros-users mailing list > ros-users@code.ros.org > https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users > >