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

[Bo Victor Thomsen]

Hi Jürgen -

Let me clarify (and make some pretty hefty generalisations, so apologies 
beforehand to any IT admin on the list)  -

  * IT admins don't like to make "new" versions 3.16, 3.18 and
    especially not every 4 months. It's a bother to make a new package
    from scratch; to register it in whatever installation/upgrade system
    they have and start some automatic or manual roll-out.

  * But most IT admins can make a "point" upgrade like 3.16.11 ->
    3.16.12, because they don't need to do anything than "refreshing" an
    already existing package and push the button for an automatic
    roll-out. No extra administration.

  * They probably won't make an upgrade and roll-out for each and every
    minor point release, i.e. from 3.16.11 -> 3.16.12 but will wait for
    the GIS admin to come and ask for it.

  * Most will wait for a specific QGIS release to get the LTR
    designation and probably a point release or two after that and then
    make a new QGIS roll-out for the organisation at that point.
    Superstition maybe ?

  * And some don't give a flying fig and just package the first LTR
    version and never bother to upgrade this.

So yes, the LTR point releases are used. Not all point releases will be 
installed every time, but some will.

Med venlig hilsen / Kind regards

Bo Victor Thomsen

Den 16-11-2021 kl. 17:50 skrev Jürgen E. Fischer:
> Hi Bo,
>
> On Tue, 16. Nov 2021 at 12:00:07 +0100, Bo Victor Thomsen wrote:
>> * In my experience, the 1 - year period for LTR is the shortest period
>>    acceptable for organisations. They don't want to repackage QGIS every 6
>>    months and certainly not every 4 months. You might even let the period be
>>    1.5- 2 years instead of 1 year.
> Hm, but that contradicts the point of the LTR, doesn't it?
>
> The LTR is about maintaining a branch for a year - and issuing a point release
> every month with fixes - and not about getting the first release of the LTR
> right (or the first after four month of the new LTR also beeing the current
> release) and then sticking with that for a year.
>
> If the point releases are not used anyway, there isn't any issue now.
> Otherwise there should be repacking each month.
>
> One point of the OSGeo4W update was also updating all dependencies - because
> the previous one had some vulnerabilities - which also worries some
> organizations - even if probably most - if not all - of them don't do any harm
> if used from within QGIS.
>
> Keeping the old versions, but still backporting fixes to everything those would
> be another extra level of work.
>
> Did we have any issues that were introduced by the actual new versions
> themselves?  I guess most were "just" packaging issues.
>
> BTW we're not relying on fixed version (number)s on other platforms than
> Windows either.
>
>
> Jürgen
>
>
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