Linux Mint team considers longer gaps between releases in attempt to accelerate development efforts — current six-month cycle means ‘we spend more time testing, fixing, and releasing than developing’

In its latest monthly update, the Linux Mint blog looks back at development over the prior decade. One of the distro’s strengths, according to the author(s), is that the Mint team does things incrementally, making changes slowly. The big news is that this blog post provides a pretty strong signal that the developers want to break from the rigid six-monthly update cycle they have self-imposed. It looks like things are going to get even more incremental and slow. Is this playing to the distro’s strengths, as the blog indicates? Conversely, the blog also suggests that more time between releases will let the Linux Mint team be more ambitious.

Longer development cycle allows for greater ambition

Schedules can easily become a burden. The good news is, if time tables are self-imposed, it isn’t that difficult to change them. However, Linux Mint has grown quite a following, so the developers probably hope this blog post will ease user fears and reduce push-back over their planned timing changes.

The Linux Mint developers argue that “With a release every six months plus LMDE, we spend more time testing, fixing, and releasing than developing.” Rationally, it is difficult to argue against this assertion. Moreover, the devs say that there are great upsides to departing from a strict timing regimen. Most notably, the admin load of the six-monthly release schedule “caps our ambition when it comes to development.” The extra time could be used for more ambitious developments between updates.

For now, no new schedule has been proposed. That’s good if this kind of time-based commitment detracts from development. Nevertheless, a schedule can assure users that the distro isn’t going to be left behind technologically, compared to the throng of alternatives. We have to wait and see the final form of the changes and the proposed “longer development cycle” before further judgment. If the changes are done right, this redefinition of the cycle will strengthen Mint’s identity and reputation for independence and stability.

We are asked to “stay tuned” for more details on the lengthened development cycle.

Elsewhere in the Linux Mint monthly news update, there are segments highlighting the success of Mint 22.3, the distro's new keyboard layouts and IM, and a discussion of new user management tools.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.