The Ubuntu GNOME makers have been encouraged by an important Ubuntu developer to implement the latest build of the GNOME desktop environment in the future versions of their distro.

Ubuntu GNOME developers posted a message a few days ago explaining once again why their OS would not be incorporating the latest GNOME packages. Apparently, this is a problem for this project and the devs wanted to say something about it before the actual launch took place.

Now, it looks like an Ubuntu developer has weighed in on the entire situation and what he said is not exactly on the same lines as the Ubuntu GNOME devs. In fact, it's quite the opposite, although the tone used was a constructive one.

Latest GNOME packages should be a part of Ubuntu GNOME

The Ubuntu GNOME devs say that they couldn't get the GNOME 3.14 into the 14.10 iteration in time, mostly because of the gap between the launch of the latest version for the desktop environment and the feature freeze for Ubuntu 14.10 cycle. That is true and no one is disputing that getting something as important as GNOME 3.14 past the feature freeze point wouldn't be very hard.

"In your mail to ubuntu-gnome, you write: If you take a look at it, and know the fact that within one month, we can't test Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 with the latest GNOME (3.14) and then release it, etc etc ... This seems to be a decision of the Ubuntu GNOME Team, not something that would involve a statement from the Ubuntu Release Team. In the past, when the Ubuntu desktop was more closely based on GNOME and there was greater alignment between the two projects, there was careful synchronization between the release schedules to ensure that the latest GNOME would be included in each Ubuntu release," says Steve Langasek, Ubuntu and Debian developer.

"I think it's too late to revisit such a decision for 14.10 without significant downside for the quality of Ubuntu GNOME; but for 15.04, I recommend that you explicitly consider at the beginning of the release cycle whether you would like to release with the latest version of GNOME," also notes the Ubuntu developer.

The biggest complaint about Ubuntu GNOME is the fact that it doesn't integrate new GNOME packages, but that might change in the future if the developers of this flavor work more closely with the community. For example, they might try, for Ubuntu 15.04, to add right from the start the development packages for GNOME 3.16 and work their way up from there.

This is still an issue under debate and it will take a while to get things sorted out. In the meantime, Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 is expected to arrive on October 23, so make the best of it.