On Mon, 2006-09-11 at 22:08 -0600, Joseph Smidt wrote:
> 1. Those who maintain Debian love unstable. It is the OS that offers the
> most freedom. Maintaining a Stable and Oldstable seem to distract from the
> focus of an ever evolving Unstable. I have an email from a developer I
> will not name that says he/she is not looking forward to having to
> maintain multiple versions of the same package in several different
> Debian snapshots when he/she could be worrying about one.
The whole point of unstable is having new software, which can be tested.
Testing is already quite stable, and any desktop user can use this.
While unstable may be said to be a collection of packages, testing and
stable are what Debian is, the distribution.
Also, maintainers _need_ to run unstable. How else would they test the
latest package that has been uploaded and see if any bugs need to be
fixed before it moves into testing?
> 2. Testing would be a better distro. The time and effort that goes
> into Freezing, maintaining Stable and Oldstable, could be pulled into
> making testing a better distro for those who want new software, without
> the risk of running Unstable. Those who enjoy trying to live on the
> bleeding edge, who don't want to bleed to death.
At the cost of stability and security, which is what stable is there
for.
> 3. The freeze seems to cause more stress then happiness.
A woman's labour while bearing a child causes more stress than
happiness, but is needed. The freeze is needed to ensure proper testing
and be able to correctly support stable, fixing the latest bugs and
releasing it.
> 4. Let's face it, it does both Debian and Desktop users who want a
> constantly updating, "Easy as Windows to use", stable distro a favor to
> send them to Ubuntu. Debian will stop getting harassed how Ubuntu's
> stable is so much nicer for users then Debian's. On the other, it does
> them a favor to go where life is made easier for them. (I am not saying
> Ubuntu stable is better then Debian's Stable, just the type of users who
> like a "training wheels" distro that has stable updates every 6 months
> is never going to be happy with Debian's Stable and Debian could do
> better off not having them harassing Debian over everything they like or
> dislike) Send them to Ubuntu, and let them come back when they want to
> run an Unstable style system. Very, very few Ubuntu users run their
> "Unstable" snapshot. Those types of people should be sent here.
Debian does not cater only to desktop users. By doing what you propose,
the server and those users who need to use a stable, tested distro are
being left behind.
If a desktop user wants fast releases, he/she can run Testing, which has
a new release almost every day, with software coming in.
You cannot compare Debian sid with Ubuntu edgy at the moment. Ubuntu's
unstable is much more unstable than Debian's, as the release cycle is
less, and more has to happen in this time. Running edgy is like running
experimental at the moment. Besides, I'm sure the majority running it
are developers at the moment.
--
No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the
furniture!
-- Sherlock Holmes
Gabriel Puliatti
foo@predius.org
predius.org
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part