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See comments here How to replace OS X with Ubuntu 20.04 on MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

The 20.04 has been released and the final iso uploaded to ubuntu.com.

Am I missing something? What kind of announcement is needed?

10
  • The Lubuntu team has already announced (and I'm on that team), however the standard used by the Ubuntu news team is the notice must be from the Ubuntu Release Team who have not yet made their decision. Their meeting was in progress, and no decision has currently been made on Ubuntu Focal Fossa release. The last email by Łukasz Zemczak was that the i386 18.04>20.04 had been plugged (a necessary step), but that was only a single step on the required list.
    – guiverc
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:47
  • Iain Lane has just announced Ubuntu 20.04 LTS release, that is the required step for me... (Ubuntu News team rules are now met). Focal Fossa is now Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. (ie. announcement from Ubuntu release Team); now I've gotta wait for the email to be cataloged in the ML database...
    – guiverc
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:49
  • Do you really think that uploading final iso and updateing the ubuntu.com page is made before the "decision"? Who cares about the newsgroups?
    – Pilot6
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:49
  • As soon as the iso is officially downloadable, the questions are on-topic IMHO.
    – Pilot6
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:50
  • The ISOs being uploaded has occurred a week before final release before, it occurs every time a release gets delayed, so a decision to delay release doesn't matter to you? example is Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (the last release), it got pushed a week, the release was put on hold just for Ubuntu Core issues... but release gets declared by the Ubuntu Release Team.
    – guiverc
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:52
  • I never saw that the front ubuntu.com page was updated before a decision was made.
    – Pilot6
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:53
  • That was declared by Alan Pope & Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox) to be an error and unfortunate event because of current events and the team being so remote... Normally (non-covid-19) they are very close to each other & all without shouting distance...
    – guiverc
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:55
  • 1
    lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2020-April/… to me anyway (o Ubuntu News team) is the requirement
    – guiverc
    Apr 23, 2020 at 17:57
  • An official announcement over the ubuntu-announce list is the way we gauge when it's 'released' and no longer offtopic. I usually post an announcement but I crashed hard yesterday due to lack of sleep so got delayed.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Apr 24, 2020 at 13:20
  • I prefer just removing the version out the question. cating a file on +1 or -60 is the same. Installing procedures has been functionally the same. That question boils down to "how to install ubuntu?". I'm sure even @guiverc would agree.
    – Braiam
    Apr 27, 2020 at 12:27

3 Answers 3

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What is the proper moment to stop closing Ubuntu+1 questions?
What kind of announcement is needed?

From our perspective, we don't need an announcement, there is no set threshold in time. Just apply some critical thinking. Is it a question? Can the question be answered? Will the question and today's answers still apply at release?

The question in question asked how to install 20.04 on a mac, on the day of release.
It was fine. It likely would have been fine five months ago.


The "problems specific to development version of Ubuntu should be reported on Launchpad" close reason tries to accomplish a few things:

  • Bugs should be reported in the right place. This isn't +1 specific.
  • Reduce speculation, eg "Will 20.10 cook my breakfast?"
  • No inappropriate wishlisting, etc

We know when a release is going to release. We know the last week or so is pretty much locked down. Many of the big decisions are made well in advance of this. Simply, +1 questions were never automatically off-topic. The only real thing that time changes is the speculative nature that things might change.

It's not the site aim to close every question. Some people trip over themselves scurrying to close and delete as much as possible. Spend some time helping people instead. The application of some critical thought would have helped the OP and saved everybody a lot of waffling on about what constitutes a release announcement.

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I can't see the linked question as I don't have enough rep to see deleted questions, so my answer is more general than being about that specific question.

I totally agree with Oli's answer. And I would like to add my 2 cents.

Theoretically, there are a lot of +1 questions that are even answerable a long time before the release is made. But it's the community's decision here to close those questions due to the chance that those answers will become obsolete quite quickly. Which makes sense, and it's something I agree with.

However, when a release is imminent, waiting to the exact second for it to be public in order to stop pressing that close button is counter-productive.

Even more broadly, the close button should not be pressed just because a +1 release is mentioned in a question. IIRC, that was never the decision here. We should always judge if the question is answerable or not.

As an example, check the following Q/A "What is a development branch?". At one point, the question's title was edited to include 20.04 in it. Almost immediately after that edit, the question attracted 2 close votes.

In the last stages of an Ubuntu release, things very rarely change. Changes are mostly regarding bug fixes and security fixes. And if a question was related to such issues, it would be closed as a bug report anyway.

If a question was asked 1 hour ago, and the announcement was made just now, should I have VTC'ed an Ubuntu+1 question if I saw it 10 mins ago, but leave it open if I see it now?

In conclusion and in my opinion, we should be able to properly judge if a question was on topic or not.

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  • I'm happy to hear that using a new release isn't supposed to automatically mean a question is off-topic. That's not quite the experience I had in the comments from my post here although I sorted that out I think.
    – Wildcard
    Apr 26, 2020 at 23:48
  • 1
    "At one point, the question's title was edited to include 20.04 in it. Almost immediately after that edit, the question attracted 2 close votes." And that's why version should be stripped out of most questions. Agnosticing the questions is more useful long term.
    – Braiam
    Apr 27, 2020 at 12:34
-2

Official announcement from the Ubuntu Release Team is the requirement for the Ubuntu News Team.

ie.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2020-April/000256.html

This release was slightly less than ideal because normally (non-COVID-19) the team are all together rather than being remote, and a few less than ideal things occurred. Normally the meeting where the delay or release decision is made has all participants in the room.

ISOs go up very early (so mirrors can get access to them before the release is actually made), and have been up and available for download up to a week before actual release time, eg. Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS and the Ubuntu Core 18 delay, the ISOs for all desktop & server releases (inc. flavors) were deemed frozen a week; though would have been re-spun had bad errors been found (iso.qa.ubuntu.com QA tracking site remained open) so doesn't make a good indication in my opinion.

There were indications on IRC it was being released in the ~10 minutes before I saw the release annoucement, but I feel it should be something concrete or auditable (like Ubuntu Release Team announcement).

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  • The marketing & other announcements put up on ubuntu.com by non-release team members have gone up before, then been removed/changed or re-posted before, so I'd be wary of ubuntu.com detail (it's ~official when it's there & remains up, but does get removed)
    – guiverc
    Apr 23, 2020 at 18:08

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