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Ubuntu 21.04 will be released later this month.

Are questions like "Will all Ubuntu 21.04 flavours also use Wayland by default?", or "Will Ubuntu 21.04 have GTK4?" on topic on this site?

https://askubuntu.com/help/on-topic says that we should not ask about "Issues with the next version of Ubuntu", but does not say anything about general questions about the next version of Ubuntu.

2 Answers 2

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Huh. I don't think we have a clear rule on this. So let's make one! In my opinion, such questions should not be allowed since they are basically pointless. When an official release is out, we will be able to give a definitive answer, but until that happens, asking whether something is planned doesn't seem very useful. For one thing, plans can change, so any answer we give has the potential to become obsolete as soon as the actual release happens.

So, I suggest we consider anything related to future releases as off topic.

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  • Can you edit askubuntu.com/help/on-topic then ? Apr 12, 2021 at 12:29
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    @ArchismanPanigrahi me? No, only a mod can do it and I am no longer a moderator here. Also, we would need a much clearer meta consensus. So far, we only have one opinion here (mine) and only 2 users have voted. That isn't enough to show that the community feels these questions should be off topic. All I did here was express my personal choice, but the final decision will depend on what most of us think, not me.
    – terdon
    Apr 12, 2021 at 12:30
  • @terdon I took your statement and added in some insight from a person of many hats. There's a +6 on your post, but I haven't heard anything against this at the moment, so give it a few days before we prod things.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Apr 12, 2021 at 13:51
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For awareness: I am a person with many hats, both here on Ask Ubuntu and in the Ubuntu Community at large. I'm going to split this into analysis based on which hats are on per section.


Speaking with the following hats on:

  • Ubuntu Core Developer
  • Ubuntu Community Council

The only people that can really answer "Will Ubuntu XX.YY have XYZ?" is the Ubuntu Developers and relevant teams. Unfortunately, those teams do not have much of a presence here on Ask Ubuntu.

The only authoritative place to get a response is to contact the relevant teams or [email protected] which is the developer discussion list. That's where you'll get your answers to these types of questions.


NOW, I'm speaking with my Moderator hat on.

GIVEN that the questions of "Will X have Y?" are time-bounded questions (and therefore not really helpful beyond the single scope of the question and the release in question), I don't believe these types of questions are really a good fit for Ask Ubuntu, because sometimes those questions are in flux and can't be answered yet. Further, if we accept the questions for the current development release, then that sets the precedent that this is acceptable for all future in-development releases at any point in the dev cycle which will result in a lot of closures and noise.

It is my belief as a moderator that these questions should remain offtopic on Ask Ubuntu as a "bad fit" for the site given that the question requires developer knowledge (that not many in Ask Ubuntu will have) and that those types of questions should be sent to the relevant mailing lists for development rather than Ask Ubuntu.

Further, I believe we should expand the off-topic rules to include "Questions related to the current development release of Ubuntu" as a broader whole - this is because most of the questions related to the development release are either bug report issues or "How do I upgrade to the release when it comes out?" (which is answered in many locations).

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    I'd like to also add that even at the time it's asked "will ubuntu xx.yy have xyz", especially if the answer is a yes, it doesn't mean it's definitive. It's only "planned to have it". There is still a chance it can get pushed to the following release if that feature is not ready by the "feature freeze" time. ps. I'm not an Ubuntu developer myself, but it's something I'd expect.
    – Dan
    Apr 12, 2021 at 14:16

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