The UBports Foundation announced its plan to transition to a fixed-release model for future OTA (Over-the-Air) updates of their Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system.
Almost a year prior, the UBports Foundation unveiled the first Ubuntu Touch OTA update based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, after dedicated years of work to shift from the Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) series base.
While this switch brought numerous benefits to Ubuntu Touch users, it also presented some dilemmas such as the inability to release individual bug fixes or security patches without releasing all other changes in the code base or freeze development when a new OTA rolls out.
To remedy these challenges introduced by the rebase from Ubuntu 16.04 to Ubuntu 20.04, on which the current Ubuntu Touch builds are based, the UBports Foundation has decided to transition to a fixed-release model when they rebase Ubuntu Touch to the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) release.
“With the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 base OS upgrade, we take this opportunity to make a change in our release model: We plan to switch to the fixed-release model,” said UBports Foundation.
This change won’t affect Ubuntu Touch users in any way. In fact, switching to a fixed-release model will let UBports Foundation deliver bug and security fixes faster than before for a more stable and reliable Ubuntu Touch experience.
The new Ubuntu Touch release model will use the <year>.<month>.<minor> format, where the <year> and <month> version strings will be numbered as the expected year and month of the respective release, and the <minor> version string will start from 0 (e.g. 24.6.0) with minor releases incrementing it by 1.
The UBports Foundation also said that they plan to release a major feature update of Ubuntu Touch every six months and minor releases every two months. They also said that each major feature update will be supported for about a month after the next major feature update is released.
Image credits: UBports Foundation (edited by Marius Nestor)
Last updated 6 hours ago