Re: bugs + rant + constructive criticism (long)

[Jim Lynch <jim@laney.edu>]

> 
> Date:    03 Jan 2001 15:23:09 +0100
> To:      debian-devel@lists.debian.org
> From:    Peter Makholm <peter@makholm.net>
> Subject: Re: bugs + rant + constructive criticism (long)
> 
> Jim Lynch <jim@laney.edu> writes:
> 
> > If you want to advocate the use of unstable software, please be my guest...
> > but not on #debian. it changes daily, and can potentially break every
> 
> Again, what is you right too say so other than it is you oppinion?

It's more than opinion, it's fact for reasons already stated; It's not 
smart to run debian dists that are not released/stable on mission-critical 
servers. It sometimes causes those servers to break, sometimes in nasty 
ways. I've seen it happen over and over again. People sometimes get fired
from their jobs over this. ("Sometimes" is good news: in many instances,
debian performs extremely well in mission-critical situations, most of the
time when the packages all fit together and do not change.)

When machines break for whatever reason, sometimes people come to 
#debian for help. It's unhelpful to encourage people to break their
mission-critical servers... If Eric wants to do it himself, fine.
If he wants to say he did it, fine too, if he warns about instability
(which his original letter shows he had plenty of.) He said he helps
on the channel, and that's fine. But it's not fine to be unhelpful
when others have to try to help undo the damage it causes.

I'm not even saying he did; I'm just letting him know, so that if
he does tell someone who is (say) new, who has a job tending a mission-
critical server that they should run unstable on it, then gets quieted 
by me on channel, he'll know why :) But, as I use the quieting as an
opportunity to have a short, private discussion of the matter usually
followed by an unquieting, it's not a big problem.

(these are fairly narrow circumstances; I may widen them somewhat
depending on the situation.)

Of course, not many developers like coming to #debian due to its 
present noisiness and relative newbishness, or maybe for other
reasons; there used to be more (heck, it used to be all-developer,
before the channel was known.) But I'm presently one of the channel
operators, so I make decisions, and I act.

If you want to discuss rights of myself and others to act, please
come to the channel and help out for about a year. Then discuss;
you'll know what's up then. As for myself, I've been around #debian
since very close to its inception; possibly as long as 6 years ago.

-Jim