Hi @meatysolutions,
First of all sorry for the inconvenience, I definitely see your point. Based on our internal discussion we plan to adapt a new update policy for the Linux/Android stacks, similar to the Xcode ones:
- when we introduce a significant update, in this case an Ubuntu (LTS) upgrade (e.g. from Ubuntu 14 to 16) we’ll add a new stack instead of updating the existing stack
- then we deprecate the oldest Linux/Android stack with a clear removal date and notifications, just like we do with our Xcode stacks (when a new Xcode major version is available - How are the bitrise.io stacks updated and with what frequency? What's the stack deprecation / removal policy? )
In this specific case it would have looked like this:
- We add the new Ubuntu 18 stack, in addition to the existing Ubuntu 16 and Ubuntu 14 stacks
- Then we deprecate the Ubuntu 14 stack, but keep it available for a while. Send notifications & publish the deprecation so that users can prepare.
- Finally, remove the Ubuntu 14 stack.
We plan to adapt this update policy for the Linux stacks at the next time we do an Ubuntu upgrade, in about 2 years.
Once again sorry for the inconvenience, we’re doing our best to avoid a breaking change like this in the future.