Re: Woody / Stable
On Sun, 19 May 2002 15:00:37 +1000
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:
> It's the Debian developers coming up with the weird conclusions that's
> annoying.
But some conclusions are not so weird:
> > What I don;t see is why there is so much hoopla against notifying
> > our userbase of what's taking place.
[snip]
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/30/1153220&mode=thread&tid=90
Wow... I just now read this... guess what: you didn't word the "let's
release on may first" thought as a guess, as I originally thought.
This link that you yourself have posted shows that you made (and
emphasized) the statement that got quoted on slashdot; it's the root
cause of this whole thing:
In that vein, I'm becoming increasingly confident in woody's release
readiness. So, to go out on a limb:
Debian 3.0 (codenamed woody) will release on May 1st, 2002.
which was the totality of the statement quoted on slashdot.
To your credit and that of all debian developers, however, most of woody
is done; actually -all- of it is done if by "all" you mean its packages
(updaters 1, new installers 0 due to that looping installer bug that
cropped up). Major hurray for that.
However, CmdrTaco did -not- also quote the next paragraph, where you
hedge your bet:
Actually, as always, it'll release when it's ready: if we find that
the software doesn't meet our expectations on April 30th, you'll find
me on the ground writhing in pain with leaves, bark and wood all over
the place [1]. (...) [1] I'm going out on a limb, remember.
So, he did pick up a newsworthy item posted to a public list, but he
didn't get enough of it.
What should have caught his eye, was a precedence you set in that note.
Later, you begin with:
Disclaimers aside, the things we've got left to finish of are these:
(-snip- list of things left to do for the release)
Which implies (1) you knew -then- that there were still things left to
do before release, but (2) you decided to make a release announcement
anyway (or, what to all the world -looked- like one). Also, (3) CmdrTaco
also knew that things had to be done, or for -sure- could have known
very easily by continuing to read. What hard thing would he have had to
do? -Scroll-?? C'mon, he's supposed to be a-journalist-. He ought to
know how to read, or rather, he ought to know -to- read.
As it stands, Taco basically said "Congrats, let me know when I can burn
the CD" which was nice of him at the time, but then when debian failed to
release (as you gave him plenty of reason to believe might happen in your
original posting), his response "from the who's-surprised-by-that dept,"
came across as sarcastic, at least it did to me.
I haven't researched the archives, so you (or someone) tell me: is this
you setting a precedent? Has this -ever- happened before? (And the
Infomagic fiasco that rendered debian unable to use the release version
number"1.0" doesn't count, because Infomagic made the release claim by
releasing "infomagic debian 1.0" cds; no debian release manager
performed that action nor made that decision.)
To put it bluntly, I don't think you should have made the "debian will
ship May 1" announcement, since debian does not make such announcements.
Had you not done so, it would have rendered unnecessary your "hedge"
paragraph that you were putting the woody out on a limb (sheesh, that's
a bad pun... :)
The biggest reason I think you should not have made the announcement,
is that doing so gives extra reasons for helpers to not want to be in
places that try to help new debian people. It's bad enough when some
relative beginners to unix, linux and/or debian were looking at woody at
its midpoint in time and going "gimme da eye candy" and helpers try to
reply "OK, but buy a scsi tape drive and keep your drives backed up"
but it's made worse for helpers when droves of helpees get confused
all at the same time for the same reason... then they drop in one-by-
one and all ask the same question. Sigh.
But since you did, CmdrTaco posted it to his news service (fair game,
imo). But I think Taco missed the boat by not also printing the "Hedge"
paragraph. Convenient he didn't, too: made his subsequent subheading
"from the who's-surprised-by-that dept," far more sharp, sensational and
melodramatic. It might be time to restrict those kind of "almost-sure"
announcements to some more private list since you know now that there
are news people looking for news there. (I very narrowly escaped wording
the previous as "news hounds trolling for news"; it may not be far from
the truth generally, however as noted above I felt this particular
"catch" was fair.)
-Jim
P.S: Apologies due to David D.W. Downey because in this -specific- case
more of his comments and complaints are more valid than I originally
thought for the simple fact of the actual wording of the announcement.
Specifically, I didn't think it was possible that someone in debian
would make an announcement and word it as officially as he did, even
-block-quoting- his one-line paragraph. Turned out he did. So, while I
didn't think so before, I do now think that a (brief) status report is
due, and it should be placed on www.debian.org right in front on top,
not hidden in one of a zillion messages accessable from lists.debian.org.
As of right now, there is still no such report placed in that location.
I think a copy should be sent to CmdrTaco as well.
However, -general- statements and reasonings -- concerning the fact that
debian (usually) does not and (always) should not make such
announcements in the first place -- still stand.
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