Re: Stop the madness (Re: -= PROPOSAL =- Release sarge with amd64)
<DISORGANIZED RANT>
On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 11:08:33 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> Yes, but probably there would be another one. Maybe "Debian destroys
> its future because it doesn't ship the architecture that will dominate
> the computing world starting next year", or something like that.
Commercially speaking this is a very important argument in favor of amd64
in sarge. I work at a rackmount server company where about ~70% of our
shipments are AMD Opterons running Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS.
Wouldn't it nice to see some of those machines running a well-made
official Debian port?
Of course, when we look at the issues pertaining to amd64 - possible
gcc-3.4 transition, missing multiarch, not all packages work with it, etc.
- it is clearly unreasonable to release it with sarge assuming it comes
out within the next two or three months. Why not dump amd64 into sid
first, keep fixing packages so they build on amd64, and then release a
sarge snapshot of it as the official sarge release for this arch? (NB
after some additional reading Frederik Schueler proposed this already,
but it's so simple and functional that it deserves repeating.)
I can't really tell where everybody is coming from. I have not read the
thread back to back. I do care about Debian but the fact is that I have a
life too. But I don't think anyone at all - as Matt Zimmermann pointed out
- objects to amd64 entering sid. In fact, I'm sure many embrace it! So a
lot of this argument is already moot.
We have all begun to take sides. Debian is falling apart and we scream
"fork Debian, get out of our hair" to opposing parties, people -- VERY
good people -- are getting disillusioned and are thinking of resigning
from the project because all the GRs we've had do nothing but generate
strife and vendettas. There is really not a whole lot in disagreement here
except that it would be REALLY, REALLY nice for a ftp-master to say "Look,
amd64 is real cool, we'd like to see it in sid, maybe not in sarge; but if
you want to do that here's what you have to do." Then we would be working
toward a common goal. But for now, this discussion is just a cesspool of
hate.
The reality is, what would happen if we gathered everyone participating in
this discussion and stuck them in a conference room somewhere, next to
each other?
I'm sure they wouldn't be ripping out each other's necks like what's going
on now.
Perhaps it would be amicable if some porters and some ftp-masters met some
time for lunch or something!? At this rate, whatever it takes to stop
people arguing, and to get them on with releasing Sarge is good.
I must emphasize that I would personally really like to see amd64 in sid.
I'm unsure as to whether it's healthy enough for sarge.
--
Joshua Kwan
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