Re: [Buildroot] [PATCH 1/1] docs/manual: update 'releases' to reflect LTS changes

On 2026-07-27, Thomas Perale wrote:
> With the release of 2025.02, LTS releases are now made every two years
> with a 3-year support.
> 
> This reflect the table showed at https://lts.buildroot.org/#releases.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Perale <[email protected]>
> ---
>  docs/manual/release-engineering.adoc | 22 ++++++++++++----------
>  1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/docs/manual/release-engineering.adoc b/docs/manual/release-engineering.adoc
> index 0cf38183f9..e202e70868 100644
> --- a/docs/manual/release-engineering.adoc
> +++ b/docs/manual/release-engineering.adoc
> @@ -5,19 +5,21 @@
>  == Release Engineering
>  === Releases
>  
> -The Buildroot project makes quarterly releases with monthly bugfix
> -releases.  The first release of each year is a long term support
> -release, LTS.
> +The Buildroot project makes quarterly releases with monthly bugfix releases.
> +Starting with 2025.02, long-term stable (LTS) releases are made every two years

Conventionally, “LTS” stands for “Long-Term Support”. The LTS page[1]
on the Buildroot Web site has the wordings:

 * long-term support
 * Long-term sustainability
 * long-term stable

but only the first one seems commonly abbreviated as “LTS”.

What about being more explicit, like “Starting with 2025.02, the first
release of every odd-numbered year is [an LTS]”?

> +and supported for three years.
>  
> - - Quarterly releases: 2020.02, 2020.05, 2020.08, and 2020.11
> - - Bugfix releases: 2020.02.1, 2020.02.2, ...
> - - LTS releases: 2020.02, 2021.02, ...
> + - LTS releases: 2025.02, 2027.02, 2029.02 ...
> + - Stable releases: 2025.05, 2025.08, 2025.11 and 2026.02, ...

I would avoid “and”, which implies that what comes is the last element
in the list, somewhat contradicting the ellipsis that follows.

Note that, in the previous version of this page, it is clear that
“LTS releases” are a subset of “stable releases”. With this change, it
looks more like non-overlapping categories. If this is intended, maybe
the “stable” category could be renamed “interim releases”. This has an
implication for the next sentence.

> + - Bugfix releases: 2025.02.1, 2025.02.2, ...
>  
> -Releases are supported until the first bugfix release of the next
> -release, e.g., 2020.05.x is EOL when 2020.08.1 is released.
> +Stable releases are supported until the next release, e.g., 2025.05.x is EOL
> +when 2025.08 is released.

If “LTS releases” is a subset of “stable releases”, then this is
incorrect: it should be “Non-LTS stable releases are supported...”.

Regards,

Edgar.

[1] https://buildroot.org/lts.html

>  
> -LTS releases are supported until the first bugfix release of the next
> -LTS, e.g., 2020.02.x is supported until 2021.02.1 is released.
> +LTS releases are supported for three years, with a one-year overlap with the
> +next LTS release, e.g., 2025.02.x is EOL when 2028.02 is released.
> +
> +See the table at https://lts.buildroot.org/#releases[lts.buildroot.org].
>  
>  === Development
>  

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