Re: Finding an improved release process.
#include <hallo.h>
* Steve Langasek [Sat, Dec 04 2004, 05:30:38AM]:
> > From my point of view, we could have released Sarge one year after Woody
> > with boot-floppies. The only thing needed was a bit more man power from
> > the porters. Instead, most of the "core team" and the BFs porters
> > stopped to work on it. And without manpower (motivated people), there
> > will be no development.
>
> Well, y'know, if they weren't willing to work on it, we can't exactly twist
> their arms, can we? Regardless of the reason, if there were an insufficient
> number of people willing to work on b-f, the reality is that we *couldn't*
> have released that way. If you were unwilling or unable to do the work
> yourself, and no one was willing to give you the help you needed, then to
> say we could have released "from your point of view" misses the big picture.
Oh, well. That is why I complained about irresponsibility in the last
paragraph. I dislike this typical Debian mentality more and more.
Beeing a volunteer seems to be a popular excuse nowadays.
> > OTOH many new people jumped into the boat following the ideas of having
> > a cool, fresh-fashioned installer. IMO (only IMO) most of them had bad
> > memories about their first Debian install so they doomed BFs without
> > any closer look at the source.
>
> Speaking for myself, I had looked at the boot floppies source not too long
> after woody's release, to try to include an updated kernel for my employer.
> I found BF's monolithic structure difficult to grok, and time-consuming to
> manipulate; I believe in the end it was not worth the time for me to follow
> through on the project, instead muddling along with the stock installer and
> manipulating the kernel on each server post-install.
>
> In contrast, d-i's structure made it very easy to start hacking on, to the
A-Ha. Sorry, but you admit here that you did not give it a chance
just because D-I seemed to give you more fun to hack on it.
Sorry, my view on the Debian internals has been corrupted in the last
months. IMO it has become an organisation of just-for-fun developers on
the one side and power seeking maniacs on the other (not you, don't
panic). Or maybe I just don't have any spare time and no motivation to
deal with all that crap again and again.
And yes, sorry for this kind of bitching. I expect some people to write
ugly answers and more people calling me an ass on IRC (yes, I have read
that). I just don't care.
> point that at the end of last year I had put together an XFS-capable install
> CD using a separate kernel in the space of a few weeks, and then (as someone
I created the bf2.4-xfs flavor within few days, IIRC. But what is the
point? I have not much to add to what I have written before.
People that did not want to touch BFs for some psychological reasons
jumped up and started to work on d-i. d-i has activated more manpower
and I respect its developers.
But I still don't think the manpower was used more efficiently. At the
end of the calculation, d-i is an improvement but coming with a 2..3
years delay. Having 10% percent of the same manpower AND access to
non-x86 architectures and experience on them would have been enough to
create a security update or even update BFs for Sarge in 2003. And there
is no reason to spew shit over BFs (as somebody in the thread did
before).
> I can agree with you that d-i is not perfect, and yes, you've pointed out
> two of the sarge installer's most notable weaknesses (I don't know anything
> about jumping penguins, though :). OTOH, I've also seen comments like "the
> sarge installer is the best Open Source installer ever" and "definitely
> easier to install than Windows XP", so clearly *some* users are impressed;
> and considering even the most fervent Debian advocates have always regarded
> the installer as a weakness, I think that's saying something...
Sure, the outcome is impressive. Though, you know there are no absolute
values.
Regards,
Eduard.
--
For any stupid thing chosen at random, you'll find at least 5 people on
the Internet who thinks it's a good idea. -- Steve Langasek in debian-devel
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