Re: Future releases of Debian

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de>]

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 08:49:29PM +0200, Christian Fasshauer wrote:
>...
> Any kind of updating release just like the bugfix releases right now 
> with debs and sources could be a way to reduce the gap of recent and 
> stable software. Such a release could be generated from stable and 
> recent packages a couple times a year and it wouldn't touch the new 
> installer or cause the user to choice between unstable, testing or stable.
> 
> (Perhaps, this thought is a litte bit too easy due to my less experience 
> in the debian building process. If so, ignore them.)

It's not technically impossible, although it's a non-trivial task if you
want to do it right. It would be some kind of official backports. In my
opinion, backports of more recent packages to an outdated Debian stable
are only a workaround, not a good solution. The real solution is to get 
a stable release of Debian at least once a year.

A real problem I see with this approach are security updates: 
Consider your suggested recent packages three times a year and support 
for two years. Then a security fix in a popular package has to be done 
for half a dozen different pacakges.

> with kind regards
> christian

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed