It is not about LTS.
Building the ISO is easy. It is the testing of the ISO consumes a lot of time and in testing you might find an issue which you then need to fix and re-test. When I last helped test pre-release ISOs with Josh we were testing each edition in 4 different install scenarios. So that is 16 fresh installs. Find a bug in any one of those and after you fix it, you may need to restart testing on all editions.
Then of course there is the blog post that comes with every new official release, someone needs to write that, get input from other team members and proof read.
Then there is the newer ISOs provided to people contributing to certain tiers through the OpenCollective inbetween official releases. I do not know if as much testing is done on those, I suspect not. But I would assume with Solus in the middle of restructuring there would be disruption to these being pushed out too.
I already pointed out we would need to move off the EOL 5.14 kernel before getting a new release (OpenCollective ISOs would not have this sort of restriction).
You also have to have time post-release to answer questions from users who are reinstalling for no reason or the new influx of users that happens every release who see the new ISO and decided to give it a try. Potentially having to fix issues that were missed in testing. There is also setting up of torrent seeds etc etc etc.
A single week easily sees way more than 500 packages updated, so I personally do not think this part is a significant concern. It is the new hardware enablement provided by the newer kernel in the updated ISO that is the important part. An switching kernel branches does not happen often enough for monthly to make sense.
- 5.14.0 was released 29th August 2021
- 5.15.0 was released on 31 October 2021
- I think 5.16.0 was released 10th January 2022
An we very rarely jump on new kernel branches straight away due to issues. Quarterly makes more sense to me.
