[CentOS-devel] Balancing the needs around the CentOS platform

On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 6:59 PM Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/19/20 9:05 PM, Mark Mielke wrote:
> > As you can see from the above timeline - if CentOS 7 was run according
> > to the CentOS 8 Stream model, CentOS would have received the*beta*
> > version of Firefox ESR 78.2, while if it had followed the CentOS 7 and
> > CentOS 8 model, CentOS would have received the*production*  version of
> > Firefox ESR 78.3.
> Why do you think Firefox 78.2 was a beta release?

"Beta" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta :

"Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the
software development phase following alpha. Software in the beta stage
is also known as betaware.[6] A Beta phase generally begins when the
software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known
or unknown bugs.[7] Software in the beta phase will generally have
many more bugs in it than completed software, speed or performance
issues, and may still cause crashes or data loss. The focus of beta
testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability
testing. The process of delivering a beta version to the users is
called beta release and this is typically the first time that the
software is available outside of the organization that developed it.
Software beta releases can either be public or private, depending on
whether they are openly available or only available to a limited
audience. Beta version software is often useful for demonstrations and
previews within an organization and to prospective customers. Some
developers refer to this stage as a preview, preview release,
prototype, technical preview / technology preview (TP),[8] or early
access. Since the introduction of Windows 8, Microsoft has called
pre-release software a preview rather than beta. All pre-release
builds released through the Windows Insider Program launched in 2014
are termed "Insider Preview builds". "beta" may also indicate
something more like a release candidate, or as a form of time-limited
demo, or marketing technique.[9]

Beta testers are people who actively report issues of beta software.
They are usually customers or representatives of prospective customers
of the organization that develops the software. Beta testers tend to
volunteer their services free of charge but often receive versions of
the product they test, discounts on the release version, or other
incentives."

Firefox ESR 78.2 release notes, as I already quoted from
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/enterprise/2020-August/002462.html
:

"This is the final scheduled release of the ESR 68.x branch. With the release
of 78.3.0esr in September, we will begin offering automatic updates from
earlier ESR versions to the 78.x branch. We recommend that organizations use
this opportunity to test this new version in their environment ahead of the
ESR68 End Of Life."

Firefox ESR has had this process for several ESR releases at this
point. Everybody who is part of the process knows what to expect.
Internally to our company, we also began testing with the release of
Firefox ESR 78.0, 78.1, and 78.2, so we could provide feedback into
78.3, which was the version that was pushed out broadly.

I don't know if we are playing word games here - or if you truly
believe it is a responsible choice to broadly deploy an early access
version to a set of "Enterprise" customers. I'll use whatever word you
want, as long as we agree that CentOS 8 Stream is for people who are
*developing* CentOS. It is not for "Enterprise production
deployments". I will comment further on another one of your posts.




--
Mark Mielke <mark.mielke at gmail.com>