Create a process for supporting DEB/RPM platforms for which we're creating packages
From time to time we're receiving questions like Hey, there is already a Fedora 27 release. It's available since 6 months, but you still support only Fedora 25 and Fedora 27. Can you update?
(#3240 (closed)).
Also looking on releases that we support:
DEB_PLATFORMS ?= debian/wheezy debian/jessie debian/stretch debian/buster \
ubuntu/trusty ubuntu/xenial ubuntu/zesty ubuntu/artful \
raspbian/wheezy raspbian/jessie raspbian/stretch raspbian/buster \
linuxmint/qiana linuxmint/rebecca linuxmint/rafaela linuxmint/rosa linuxmint/sarah linuxmint/serena linuxmint/sonya
RPM_PLATFORMS ?= el/6 el/7 \
ol/6 ol/7 \
fedora/25 fedora/26 fedora/27 fedora/28
I see at least one distributions release, that is not supported by distributions communities already: fedora/25
. There are also debian/wheezy
and raspbian/wheezy
that are at the end of Debian's LTS support system (until 2018-05-31, so less than 1.5 month from now). The list of Linux Mint releases that we're producing packages for seems to be also too big (7 releases)
We should introduce a process that would allow us to constantly add new supported releases, and remove already unsupported ones from the list of packages that we're generating. For this, we should also decide which releases we want to support (e.g. packages for GitLab CE/EE are supporting only LTS versions of Ubuntu - nothing else).
My proposal as for supported releases is to:
- for distributions that have LTS versions, support only LTS versions and current stable one (for Debian it would be basically
last three stable versions
, for Ubuntucurrent stable and the ones marked as LTS
). - for distributions that are not using the LTS pattern, support only releases that are not marked as EOL (e.g. for Fedora it would mean that we should drop support for Fedora 25 few months ago).
As for making this a constant process that allows us to be up-to-date without user's requests, we could add a point in our Release Checklist, to the Before 7th
part:
## Before 7th
- [ ] chose a release manager
- [ ] link release blog post's MR
- [ ] set deadline for _add entries to release blog post_
Please check what deadline is set for `General Contributions` section in the release blog post
Merge Request. It should be 6th working day before the 22nd. In that case we can set our
deadline for 7th working day before 22nd, however if the deadline from the MR is earlier, then
use the eraliest one.
- [ ] Update the `X.Y.` and `X-Y-` to a specific release version
- [ ] [Check supported DEB/RPM releases](link-to-the-documentation-how-to-do-this) and update the lists if needed
This way we would once a month check the state of supported distributions and prepare an update, that would be next used by upcoming release.
@nolith @bikebilly I'd like to hear your opinion here :)