On Wed, Jun 23, 1999 at 03:24:27AM -0500, R. Brock Lynn wrote: > Michael Stone wrote: > > Are we ever going to have a release in which we don't dramatically > > change package locations? Are we really trying to make it harder for > > people to use debian? > > Um, like it takes only one extra line in /etc/apt/sources.list to make > up for a split server. [snip] > That's all most users will ever need to know, if that. One of debian's cool points is ease of upgrades. But we consistently throw that away. I didn't say it was a hard change to make. What I'm saying is that all the documentation that tells people where to look for debian packages is obsoleted. All the experience that tells people to poke around on ftp.debian.org or their favorite mirror for whatever they're looking for is now obsoleted. All the systems people set up to access .debs are now obsoleted (and will break suddenly and inexplicably.) All kinds of URL's are obsoleted. Sure, it's easy to fix on an individual basis, but we're generating a lot of work (and possibly some bad will?) and adding needless complications to the system. And this happens to our users on a regular basis. Who is this reorganization for? If it's for the developers, they should already know the difference between free and non-free. If it's for users, there's got to be a solution that doesn't make things harder for them. (The addition of an official.debian.org server would be better than moving things to whatever.debian.org if people really can't live without doing something.) Mike Stone
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