[QGIS-Developer] QGIS LTR releases -- is it time to pull the plug?

[Nyall Dawson]

Hi lists,

I'd like to start some conversation about the dire condition of the
QGIS LTR release and what we can do to remedy/avoid this in future.

If you've missed the conversation, our QGIS 3.16 windows releases have
been completely broken for nearly a month now. 3.16.12 had a critical
issue which caused lockups in Python code, and now 3.16.13 has
completely broken projection handling (resulting in loss of CRS,
hangups when opening projects, etc).

So what do we do? I can think of a few responses we could make:

- Kill 3.16.13 with fire. It needs to be removed from the website and
all traces of the internet ASAP. Rollback to only offering 3.16.11,
which is the last good Windows 3.16 release.

- Put out a massive apology (and ask users to step up their funding to
better maintain QGIS releases in future ;)

- Mark 3.16 as an early EOL. (I can't see anyone interested in
resolving the actual issue, so we've no way forward here in releasing
a "good" 3.16 release again.)

- Write the LTR releases off as a failed concept. (i.e. if we don't
have the resources to maintain them properly, we shouldn't be offering
them at all and should resort back to the single maintained release at
any one time situation.)

- Lower the supported period of a LTR release to 6 months?

- Offer "theoretical" LTR releases ONLY as source code, but leave it
to users to compile themselves and accept responsibility for their own
packaging of this release.

- Go on a funding drive so that QGIS can **pay** a developer and
packager so that we actually CAN say we have stable LTR releases
again?

- ...something else...?

Suffice to say, these are big issues, with big responses. But we're
also under extreme time pressure here -- 3.16 is broken beyond belief,
and we DO need to make some public responses asap (i.e. TODAY!!!!)

Nyall