I fully support the version increase. I have had some users particularly with
AMD systems that 3.11.x simply did not support. I had another broken system
due to lack of support with 3.11.x then lack of support with Broadcom Tainted
Crap closed source using the latest stable version of the Kernel. I had one
customer so far that I had to recommend waiting until the next release until
migrating which is frustrating.
I use the latest stable version of the kernel 3.15.x on my systems but I
purchase my hardware to work with it, Intel, Intel Graphics, Atheros Wireless
etc to keep the closed source tainted crap off my systems so I do not have
issues. This is what I recommend all people do.
3.12.x has been out for quite a while it is not exactly cutting edge, and has
had a number of maintenance patches applied to it so I see no real issue in
migrating openSUSE updates to it. I do not know any user that would be unhappy
about this.
I typically just add the OBS Kernel Stable repo to the system I install as
well as the OBS Xorg/X11 repo as well on the systems that I can. I have not
had a community user who was unhappy about this, unless they had hardware that
required proprietary drivers that could not work with that version in which
case they were relatively pissed they could not use the latest version and
irritated with NVDIA/ATI/Broadcom etc.
I also typically advise the people I do work for to replace hardware with
hardware that has more open source kernel support for the best Linux
experience.
Being stuck with an old Kernel and old X11/Mesa is crap as far as I am
concerned, It is like being stuck three versions behind with GNOME or KDE and
being irritated every time you see someone with the latest version.
All software has defects, regressions happen, keeping old software does not
really help in any way as far as I am concerned. Most regressions are found
and corrected quickly. Most users are happy when they get new features which
generates the best form of positive marketing. openSUSE is not an Enterprise
targeted distro, it is a community targeted distro sitting in the middle
between Enterprise and bleeding edge, it would be nice to push it a little
further toward bleeding edge and a little less toward enterprise and start
regularly bumping core components up after they have been released for general
consumption for 3-4 months.
The more the software versions age the more users/developers we loose! I am
all for only needing to do a full system upgrade about once a year but I still
want relatively new software and regular updates. If I wanted old software
with large amounts of new hardware headaches I would use SLED.
Since SUSE is supposedly breaking away form direct developer SUSE paid
employee support for openSUSE sadly we can also break away form openSUSE being
testing platform for SLED/SLES some as well and do some version jumps.
I do not know anyone that is really happy running 3.11.x when 3.15.x is out
for general consumption. I am personally fine with bumping to 3.14.x which
would make most users happy in my opinion, look how impatient most users are
when it comes to the latest major/maintenance releases of KDE, most openSUSE
users I talk to do not want to wait three weeks they want to jump right up and
a number typically do as soon as a repo is available even if it is just a
temporary one. Also most users I talk to are generally irritated by the lack
of kernel bumps through regular updates then slightly appeased when they
discover OBS Kernel Stable.
If OBS did not exist I personally would not use openSUSE. It provides me with
the software versions I want on a distro that I like using.
Firefox and LibreOffice should be bumped as soon as a new public release is
released. I hate having old versions of these products.