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Re: The stable/testing/unstable branches not a solution ?



Might I suggest a different approach. Currently a lot of the hold-ups in debian are caused by desktop oriented packages. I think debian should be split into two branches like this:

          unstable
         /        \
        /          \
desktop-testing     testing
       |            |
       |            |
desktop-stable      stable


Only server oriented packages would go into testing (server-testing) and stable, only desktop oriented packages would go into the desktop repositories. This way debian would have a shorter release cycle, (debian-desktop project would play a large role in the desktop branch of course).

Release cycles for debian would be cut, debian-desktop would release on it's own time and debian(-server) would release on it's own time, but kde, X, and openoffice would not hold up debian(-server). Divide and conqueror. If one desire, the two could be mixed with simple edits to a user's /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Debian is supposed to be the universal operating system but it is difficult to make releases that will encompass both server and desktop/workstation systems. The desktop branch of debian would also have a different front end to d-i by default, and include other desktop nicities that are hard to justify with debian the way it is now. I think this is the best way to speed up release cycles with out hasseling the developers.

--
Matthew A. Nicholson
Matt-Land.com



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