Re: Future releases of Debian
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 07:57:46PM +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:
> Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de> writes:
>
> > On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 08:42:37PM +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:
> >>...
> >> I contacted the SRM about the possibility of inclusion of gimp-print
> >> 4.2.5-1woody0 in a point release, but I've not had any reply yet. It
> >> doesn't meed the usual criteria for a stable release, but this type of
> >> update would greatly improve the "woody experience" for users of
> >> stable.
> >
> > This is a case where a new version of gimp-print would help you.
> >
> > I know many people who need a new version of SANE for their printer.
> >
> > Some people will soon need support for kernel 2.6.
> >
> > My Matrox G550 requires XFree86 >= 4.2 .
> >
> >
> > If you start to include new versions, like you suggest for gimp-print,
> > into stable it's worse than an official backport - people upgrading to
> > the latest point release will automatically get an improved new version,
> > but this version might contain new bugs that affect them.
>
> I'm not sure (in the case of Gimp-Print) that this would be true.
> 4.2.5 is a stable point release, only incorporating bugfixes and
> quality improvements. Any regressions have surely been caught--the
"Any regressions" is _very_ optimistic.
Even though it's tested, there might be rare cases where it breaks a
setup that worked with the version in woody.
Hypothetical example:
Perhaps some exotic printers are broken on MIPS?
> last four point releases have all featured in releases of Mandrake,
> SuSE et. al. There is a new point release (4.2.6) due out, but it is
> only very trivial bug fixes, which are not fixing regressions from
> prior versions. In this case, it really would be a drop-in
> replacement.
Unfortunately, "trivial fixes" and "new bugs" aren't mutual exclusive.
The solution for your problem isn't to lobby new oftware into an old
stable, the solution is that you Debian developers manage to make more
frequent stable releases - if there was a new stable release exactly
once a year, Debian 3.1 was already released.
> Regards,
> Roger
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
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