[QGIS-Developer] Status of 3.44 becoming LTR?

[Greg Troxel]

I saw 3.40.12 and updated pkgsrc, and the .12 being pretty high made me
guess that there was a new LTR and I should look at it.  I went to read

  https://qgis.org/resources/roadmap/

and after staring at it for a long time, my take is:

   - 3.44 is *going to be* LTR, but will not be blessed as such until
     3.44.8 in February

   - What is unusual is that LTR will be 3.44.8, not 3.46.4, because
     there was no 3.46 in 2025-10, but we're still holding off until
     February, because some blend of
       + LTR promotion is always February
       + LTR promotion of a future-LTR happens only when the next branch
        .0 comes out.

   - 4.2 will become LTR in 2026-10, which is out of cycle, and probably
     we'll then see 4.8 in 2027-10 with LTRs happening on October
     instead of February.  (That's an observation not a complaint.)

If I'm confused a clue would be appreciated, and if 99.9% of the list
was already super clear sorry for the noise.

Separately, given that pkgsrc is on the fence between "latest release is
fine" and "LTR is more stable and better", I should be planning to
switch from 3.40.x to 3.44.x, and any time between now and just after
the LTR-blessing of 3.44 on 2026-02-20 is a reasonable time to do that.
(I am building 3.44.4 from source and it's halfway through.)

My impression is that 3.44 is entirely stable and that for normal users
(not trying to coordinate with other packaging systems in big
organizations, and not having the LTS "running old code on purpose is
good" outlook), there is no real reason to stay on 3.40.

It is clear that I should try to package 4.0, or even 3.99, but as a
separate/experimental package, to surface and resolve qt6 issues.