WetGeek What will this mean for Solus? Will a Budgie update be available right away, or maybe by next Friday? Will you need some time to Solusify Budgie, or will it be usable with Solus the way it's released from Finland?
Now that Budgie development is an independent project, my suggestion is to carefully test Budgie releases on Solus before release, just as the team tests upgrades to Gnome, Mate and Plasma before release, rather than rush to release. Whether that means release next Friday, the Friday after, or even longer, is up to the Solus team.
Because of differences in repositories, Budgie has been on a bifurcated path for several years. Solus Budgie, tied closely to Solus, had a more up-to-date desktop integrated with Solus, while other Budgie implementations (Ubuntu Budgie, openSUSE Budgie, Gecko Budgie and so on) were older releases, modified to one extent or another. The Budgie implementations are quite different.
Josh indicated, in his January posts, that the intent of BuddiesOfBudgie was to bring the other Budgie implementations up-to-date with Solus Budgie, while also integrating innovations by others, specifically Ubuntu Budgie, and make Budgie distro independent. How that will play out in this initial release, and in future releases, is yet to be seen.
I'll be curious to see what Solus does, of course, but I am equally interested in what Ubuntu Budgie, openSUSE Budgie and Gekco Budgie do going forward. My hope is that the split-off of Budgie from Solus will result in a stronger Budgie across the board.
