Re: Bits from the RM
On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 01:26:17PM +0200, cobaco wrote:
> > and why on stable you do not expect a stable KDE?
> kde 3.2. will be the stable kde release come 8 december
The reality is that if KDE 3.2 is stable in KDE, and it entered
testing on December 8th, it would probably delay the release of sarge
by at least 6 weeks just so we can make sure the Debian build of KDE
3.2 was bug-free. And then in the meantime, no doubt some other
significant package (GNOME, perhaps?) would become "stable", and
people would agitate for us to hold up the release for another 6
weeks, OR developers would take the opportunity to destablize the
release further because they see the vast major, gaping exception to
the freeze schedule set forth by the RM. AND this all assumes that
KDE actually hits their release schedulate!
Bad ju-ju.
The real problem is that stable has a reputation of taking years and
years before we manage to do a release, so people are always desperate
to shove every last bit of functionality and new upstream release into
it. What folks don't realize is that makes the problem worse, not
better, by stretching out the release schedule.
Better to have a hard freeze schedule, and then try to turn out new
stable releases every 6-9 months. Then folks won't be so desperate to
shove new things in and screw up the release. The problem, though, is
the first such attempt take release schedules seriously and
agressively (a) a really hardass RM, and (b) a certain amount of faith
by the developers that we really can get our act together about short,
regular, predictable releases.
- Ted
Reply to: