Re: Drop testing
On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 10:44:58PM +0200, Gergely Nagy wrote:
> > It may sound a bit radical, but core points have been mentioned in the
> > thread already. I suggest to do it in a more radical way:
> >
> > - unstable lockdown in the freeze
> > - drop Testing and concentrate on work instead of wasting time on
> > synching stuff. This eliminates the need for testing-security. See
> > the last part of the paper for details.
>
> Doing this would result in many users who currently run testing fall
> back to stable + backports or switch to another distro (ubuntu being a
> likely candidate), which in turn, would result in less bugreports and a
> less stable distribution. I, for one, wouldn't run unstable on my
> parents' box, whereas testing proved to be quite reliable there.
>
Absolutely agree. DON'T drop testig. I'm using testing since ages here
on a good deal of boxes with different configurations and used by
naive users without big gotchas. It helps me to check problems
in -sarge- without using sid on any computers, but for my personal ones.
It helps a lot in debugging and testing upgrades from woody.
It helps in creating custom distros starting from an archive in
a reasonable state.
And, about the general 'shape' of testing: are you conscious that
testing is _now_ in very better general shape than other 'released'
distros? Are you consciuous that _our_ requirements about
level of quality is higher than that of many blasonated
(also $$$) distros?
> Freezing unstable will get you nothing compared to what we have now.
> Those who don't care about a release, will not care that way either,
> just their complaints will get louder and more frequent. Those who are
> willing to do the work neccessary for the release are already trying to.
>
I agree too. I add also that dropping testing would not help in having
up-to-date versions in stable. Simply, we would have a loooong freeze
in sid, due to the current size of archive (i.e. package per developer)
and number of RCs. Versions would be obsolete in any way.
> Remember, Debian is a volunteer project, you cannot force people to do
> something they do not want to.
>
> > - about the "filtering updates for frozen" - yes, some additional
> > manpower is required but that work must be done. The problems with
> > Testing synchronisation are not of pure technical nature, they are
> > social problem, and so they should be solved by people and not
> > scripts.
>
> Yes, testing synchronisation is not a purely technical matter. Nor is it
> purely social, so the testing scripts, which automatically keep stuff in
> sync, are a real help. On top of that, package maintainers coordinating
> with each other (the social part) is welcomed too, and should be
> encouraged. (And those who break a transition should be kicked in the
> ass, so they won't try it again :P)
>
> I firmly believe that fixing the problems with testing (mainly
> testing-security at this point in time) would be MUCH better than
> dropping testing and freezing unstable before the next release.
>
You are my hero :-P
--
Francesco P. Lovergine
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