I’m partially agree with you Stefano but you forgot two little things:
I think you missed a point… Nethserver is born from SME server, Nethesis’ guys know very well how things are supposed to work… that’s why I don’t understand how they missed some things like an upgrade path
regarding:
during the RC stage, integrators usually test the system, the upgrade from old release to the new one, test new apps… this activities are fundamental to find the little bugs and to learn how the new system works (C7 is very different from C6)… this did not happen, that’s all
now, let’s make 2 examples…
a new installation… I can’t “sell” NS7, first because some issue are still present, then because I haven’t seen the new groupware app, which is the main reason why I offer linux solutions… so I have to wait… weeks, maybe months… in the meanwhile I can only 2 options… install NS6 (odd…) or choose something else
an HW upgrade… usually it’s the right moment to do a O.S. upgrade too… let’s say I have already a sogo based solution on NS6… well, which is the right upgrade/migration path to NS7 with, for example, samba4?
I don’t use NS (or any other linux distro) to play or as my home server, so this situation is an issue for me…
Then you might need to consider to get your hands dirty and start working instead of talking.
I have to ask what you’re basing this on from past experience, surely not Zentyal, because I clearly remember what a disaster the v3 upgrades were as they tried to upgrade through the underlying ubuntu distros and I say that having had a couple of successful upgrades amongst the many failures I rolled back, in fact I’m still sitting on a couple of 3.3’s that I will migrate to ns7.
Personally, I didn’t expect a v6 to v7 upgrade, but I promise, I sure as hell didn’t expect the v7 release to be held up waiting on a v6 to v7 upgrade path.
IDK, maybe I see things differently because I don’t sell my small business clients on ‘free’ servers with the idea they’re getting the support that ‘paid’ servers get, geez… I’ve got a paid distro I use all over that rolls out their updates on an individual server basis, it can take a given server a couple of months before it gets a major update that another server in the same building got 3 days after release.
I use SME server since 2004 and the upgrade path was always clear well before the release of the stable version… from v5.6 (redhat 6) to v6.01 (redhat 7.3) and then to v7 (centos4) to v8 (centos5) to v9 the only issue was between v8 and v9 because centos (RHEL) doesn’t permit a direct (cd) upgrade…
I have some customers that started in 2006 with v6 and I migrated across hw and sw upgrades till now, with NO issues at all, never.
this is possible for 2 main reasons:
nethservice (an old product from Nethesis) was a SME server with proprietary modules, so I’m quite sure that the upgrade path concepts are well known
I never sold a payed distro, I sell services based on full OOSS products, I don’t like to pay for licenses and/or for support… that’s why I need to test carefully products before proposing them to my customers
to clarify: setting up a server with NS or any other distro nowadays is trivial… but linux is linux, if something start going wrong, you have to know how it works… and this means that you have tested it, you broke it and then fixed… this is a kind of job that need time and a good
documentation
Isn’t sme still on v6.7 from, like over a year ago?
…regardless, you obviously have much higher expectations of a free community distro than I.
is it relevant? BTW, this could be a reason why I’m here, isn’t it?
SMe is totally community driven, there’s no firm nor payed devs behind
is it relevant? I see no upgrade path on the Nethesis site, regardless, I know from experience, long before Zentyal, that, for various reasons, a community distro can quickly grind to a halt and therefore provision all my clients and installs for it, hell, for all I know this community is nothing more than the basis for @alefattorini’s college sociology thesis, he’s a pushy guy… 
I’ll tell you right now, I’m focusing my ‘free’ time just testing disaster backup, it takes hours, to setup and run various attempts, I’m not really looking forward to testing upgrades from 6.8 to 7, so I guess that takes me back to my previous statement.
“…you obviously have much higher expectations of a free community distro than I.”
edit… I mean, for heavens sakes, go read the threads here on the groupware and what’s going on in their communities, look what happened to owncloud… geez man, and those are quite out of Nethesis control, nevermind nethserver.
Geez guys, I hope no one’s gonna leave. The problem has been told and made known, I’m pretty sure that adjustments will be made.
This is for the community by the community, we can work together to achieve it.
Wise words!
Well said, Im say I have been a bit absent for the last 2 months, After a bit of a personal issue, I have not been in the best of health, I should be back in the seat in the next 2 weeks, But really, @telekomiker I must say to make such harsh statements, Not nice at all, I have a network company with over 1500 clients a whole lot of nethserver deployments, and none of my clients complain. On a consultancy basis, you basically have the cheek to come and throw your mouth about, for services you are charging for, but you are getting for free. Damn, does thd client know you not paying for the software.?
how many deployments do you have? 
If an upgrade path from 6.8 to 7.3 is in progress then surely waiting is not to big a deal…I for one am extremely reluctant to do a complete reinstall to 7.3. Far to risky, and I do agree with SME server the update paths were all released along with the main release. (no criticism intended here). My biggest concern is with security, but as Stephane de Labrusse stated earlier there is support available until 2020, and I’m sure it wont take that long for an upgrade path to be available. I have tried to install 7.3 (rc3) on a spare server to get the look and feel but after several attempts stopped. It wouldn’t install for some reason. So I wait for the upgrade…
Then still, as soon an upgrade path is available, I would dryrun this on a virtualized testserver… If it weren’t for the process itself, it would be for my own reassurance that I know what is coming when updating.
If I am correct SME10 will be on centos7 too. That is probably the reason why it is still not released. Going from CentOS6.x to CentOS7.x is probably the biggest leap CentOS has ever made. A LOT of changes are implemented that are not necessarily compatible with each other. It needs a lot of time creating upgrade solutions and testing to get that covered.
It is a matter of approach and choice: release a stable new release or wait until every problem you could think of is ironed out. The latter could set back release for months, even years.
Should we not have released NethServer7 because there isn’t an upgrade path yet from 6.8 to 7?
No…
But the upgrade path has to be clear when you release a stable version
You made both 6 and 7, I expect you to know how they work, where they are different… And so you know how to move from the old to the new
It’s quite clear and easy to understand
Is it possible to install 7.3 and then load in the backup data?. This is what I was hoping to do as a practise run on a test server, but as I stated in my earlier post it wouldn’t install (7.3 rc3). Possibly will try again with the stable release…but remember the old saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. A clean install and load in backup data could be a solution!!!
It should be possible in a few days. You can follow progress on github:
There’s also a specific topic on that:
And also a wiki page!
At this point, I guess it’s more constructive moving this discussion there 
So we can improve the process as much as possible.