You can practically set your watch by Canonical's release schedule for the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Every six months, the organization releases a major upgrade. While open source developers are constantly tweaking and improving Ubuntu, these major releases typically include better hardware support, new software, and the latest kernel and desktop environment updates.
Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth says the team is now going a bit further. Not only will Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, and 10.04 be released at regular intervals, but Canonical will be releasing point upgrades for Ubuntu 8.04 every three months. Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron gets this special treatment because it's an LTS or Long Term Support release. That means Ubuntu 10.04, which will be released in April, 2010, will get the same kind of support.
Shuttleworth does suggest that he'd be willing to throw out the release schedule (or at least amend it a teensy weensy bit) if another major Linux distributor like Red Hat, Novel, or Debian were willing to collaborate on a coordinated release.
For our part, we'd like to see Apple and Microsoft enter into that agreement. If there was a new version of Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu out every 6 months, or even every 2 years, consumers would always have the option of picking among the latest, and most up to date operating systems, whether free and open source or commercial and closed source. Not that this will ever happen, but sometimes it's nice to dream.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-12-2008 @ 11:38AM
Todd said...
"...f there was a new version of Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu out every 6 months consumers would always have the option of picking among the latest, and most up to date operating systems."
Yes I have that same delusion, then the cold hard reality of it all comes crashing down on me when I go to uninstall IE 7 after getting SP3 forced on me, or when I go to get the latest version of iTunes and find Safari mysteriously appears.
Can me and Mr. Linder's delusions ever become reality? Would Redmond and Cuppertino ever, in a million years allow me to make my personal computing all by myself? Will there ever be a day when the Consumer is treated like an equal instead of a pee-on subordinate?
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5-12-2008 @ 11:49AM
Bufsabre said...
i love ubuntu's release schedule, you never have to wait to long and you have a new release, im sure im not the only one who thinks this but ubuntu really is the greatest hope for linux to become as mainstream as mac
now ill hide the fact that im on openSuSE
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5-12-2008 @ 12:43PM
Elias said...
Apple has a pretty good release schedule of every 18-24 months for a major OS release. Leopard had a bit of a delay because of the iPhone, though its OS was based on Leopard.
MS is the one with the crazy release schedules.
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5-12-2008 @ 1:08PM
infinity306 said...
Maybe if service packs were released every 6 months.. but I don't want to have to think about paying to upgrade Windows every 6 months.. Just not my cup of tea..
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5-12-2008 @ 4:11PM
infinity306 said...
I for 1 like the semi-crazy Release schedules of MS(your words...) I don't want them to rush to release every 6 months.. we don't need more ME's put out there.. and I don't want to think about potentially buying an upgrade of windows or not every 6 months...
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5-13-2008 @ 7:46AM
Christian Walters said...
SO, you LIKE the fact that Vista took 6 years to get developed, and IS the next Windows ME then?