Re: Naming of new 2.0 release
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> [ Please don't Cc: public replies to me. ]
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> Philip Hands:
> > I think we should encourage them not to differentiate between the old and the
> > new (i.e. call them both 2.0 in adverts) because people that receive the old
> > version really are not going to suffer any real hardship.
>
> This is exactly the attitude that I disagree with. The changes between
> 2.0 and 2.0r1 are significant (fixes to security problems!). Having
> to download the changed packages, even if they are few, certainly _is_
> a real hardship. Not everyone is on the Internet.
>
> However, I'm not going to argue the point further. This is a value
> decision, not a technical one, and I'm not willing to spend the effort
> to change everyone else's values to be correct. However, I don't want
> anyone to be able to say there is a consensus, when there is not.
While I take your point that there are good reasons to want the latest and
greatest version at all times, there is always going to be a certain amount of
lag between the online versions and the CD versions, so we are really only
talking about how much lag we are willing to live with.
If we are too vocal about announcing a new version, we will not actually
reduce the lag in the long run, because the silver CD vendors will stop
carrying Debian, thus depriving a large portion of our CD users of _any_
version, let alone the latest one.
What proportion of the people who currently have a copy of the 2.0 CD would
you expect to rush out and buy the next version, assuming that they fully
understood the difference (rather than just getting swept allong with the
hype) ?
I would guess that the new version of X would probably tip the balance for
many people, because it is fairly large, and possibly expensive to download.
Do you think that many of the people that know they want a new version of X,
and that Debian has it packaged, will not also work out that they want the
2.0r1 CD, rather than the 2.0 CD ?
On the other hand, I would expect that there are quite a number of Debian
newbies who would start clamouring for 2.0.1 CDs if we announced it with a
fanfair on slashdot, despite the fact that they probably have no need for it
at all.
Are we really serving their interests by encouraging them to buy
another CD needlessly ?
You cite fixes to security problems as the irrefutable reason for getting the
next version out of the door ASAP. Well most people that need the security
fixes, need them because they are on the Internet. Anyone that is really
serious about security, needs to be on the Internet to hear about the latest
security bugs.
The people you are worrying about, those without net access,
generally don't give a damn about security, and if they do they should be
paying a gold CD vendor for snapshots as required.
Cheers, Phil.
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