[Martin Zobel-Helas] > Might it be that they try to get no new packages into the archive > before a release? It is just a guess... I have no idea. But several of the packages in the NEW queue are just rearranged old packages fixing real bugs, and sarge would be better of if these fixes made it into the next stable release. Have a look at the "bugs" column on <URL:http://qa.debian.org/~anibal/debian-NEW-summary.html> if you are curious about this issue.