Matthew A. Nicholson wrote:Might I suggest a different approach. Currently a lot of the hold-ups in debian are caused by desktop oriented packages. I think debian should be split into two branches like this:unstable / \ / \ desktop-testing testing | | | | desktop-stable stableI would do it differently. What about the following: unstable base unstable add-ons | | | | testing base | | | | | stable base stable add-ons
An intresting approach. But I think having one unstable and multiple testings (and even multiple stables) is a better idea:
unstable
/ \________________________
/ | \
desktop-testing base-testing server-testing
| \___ | |
| \ | |
desktop-stable | base-stable server-stable
|
desktop-devel-stable
But excessive branching could become a problem. But I think it would be
better to just add different branches under unstable, that way the same
packages could be is the server and desktop branches. For example a lot
of people want ssh on their desktop systems, so perhaps that package would
be in server-testing and desktop-testing.
If a user wanted to have a mixed system, they could install base-stable then uncomment the lines in sources.list that point to the desktop and server repos, or any combo they want...
Once again, excessive branching could quickly become a problem (aka desktop-base under desktop-testing along with desktop-devel, desktop-multimedia...). Now this branching would not be difficult from a technical standpoint, but that's extra release managers and what not, and worring "hey is my package in desktop-base and in desktop-devel?" Just throwing ideas around.
-- Matthew A. Nicholson Matt-Land.com