OpenSUSE 12.2 Released With New Features

[Ansla]

In sync with Ubuntu doesn't mean they release in April/October, as that will asure Ubuntu will not include them, instead they release in January/July, just in time for the feature freeze. Don't forget hat this discution started because KDE 4.9 was released before OpenSuse 12.2 and yet didn't get included as it was released after the feature freeze.

[Ansla]

I should also note that openSUSE did switch once to a 6 month plan. After seeing the instability it created with the OS the community overwhelmingly decided to go back to a longer release cycle. They preferred stability to cutting edge. Out of that two decisions were made. 1) to officially support optional upstream releases of desktops and 2) gave birth to tumbleweed for those who want the leading edge of the official releases of other packages such as the kernel.

So how does this contradict what I said initialy? Ubuntu choose to have current version of the DEs and worse quality while OpenSuse choose to have quality and sometimes lag behind latest versions of DEs in their releases (fixed with tumbleweed).
BTW, while my disto of choice is Gentoo I also have a machine running a binary distribution, and for that I use OpenSuse.

[deanjo]

In sync with Ubuntu doesn't mean they release in April/October, as that will asure Ubuntu will not include them, instead they release in January/July, just in time for the feature freeze. Don't forget hat this discution started because KDE 4.9 was released before OpenSuse 12.2 and yet didn't get included as it was released after the feature freeze.

Look at the release history of KDE, especially 4.0+ they do not "sync" to even a Jan/July time frame. You are seeing a pattern that does not exist. One could just as easily say the moon phase syncs up with Ubuntu. Ubuntu just uses what is current at the time of the feature freeze, just like openSUSE.

[deanjo]

So how does this contradict what I said initialy?

What I have an issue with on your comment is implying that KDE synchronizes it's releases to Ubuntu releases which is not the case at all. KDE releases occur whenever they are ready to be released. Not to the marching drum of Ubuntu's release schedule.

[Ansla]

What I have an issue with on your comment is implying that KDE synchronizes it's releases to Ubuntu releases which is not the case at all. KDE releases occur whenever they are ready to be released. Not to the marching drum of Ubuntu's release schedule.

According to Wikipedia (please let me know if there is an official page with the dates that is more acurate):

KDE 4.0 was released on 11 January 2008
KDE 4.1 was released on 29 July 2008
KDE 4.2 was released on 27 January 2009
KDE 4.3 was released on 4 August 2009
KDE SC 4.4 was released on 9 February 2010
KDE SC 4.5 was released on 10 August 2010
KDE SC 4.6 was released on 26 January 2011
KDE SC 4.7 was released on July 28, 2011
Releases 4.8 were made available on 25 January 2012
KDE SC 4.9 was made available on 1 August 2012

And KDE 4.10 is scheduled for 23 January 2013. So ok, some of them slipped to early February/August, I'm not aware of any of them not making the Ubuntu feature freeze. And don't tell me I'm imagining KDE has a 6 months release cycle.

[TheBlackCat]

And KDE 4.10 is scheduled for 23 January 2013. So ok, some of them slipped to early February/August, I'm not aware of any of them not making the Ubuntu feature freeze. And don't tell me I'm imagining KDE has a 6 months release cycle.

If I recall corectly the decision at the time included a number of factors, including:

-KDE had tried to do releases around January and July, even before Ubuntu existed, although since they didn't have a fixed release schedule prior to 4.0 it often slipped
-In terms of holidays it worked well
-It worked with the release schedules of a bunch of distros at the time. Ubuntu was among those, but it was not the only one they wanted to work with nor do I recall it getting particular consideration (in fact I recall some people wanting to make sure they didn't give Ubuntu special treatment with their scheduling).

[alcalde]

One could just as easily say the moon phase syncs up with Ubuntu.

Please don't give Mark Shuttleworth any ideas. "Hmmm.....LUnity....."

[Awesomeness]

KDE didn't exactly sync the release cycle to Ubuntu. KDE synced to GNOME’s but shifted it by two months to make sure that one does not steal the other’s media attention by releasing too close together.
Ubuntu (and Fedora) also synced to GNOME’s cycle.

Aside from (K)Ubuntu and Fedora, back then Mandriva was still prominent, KDE-focused and also had a 6-months cycle.