Re: Release update: minor delay; no non-RC fixes; upgrade reports
On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 02:27:04PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 01:02:28PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 02:58:21AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > Anyone who can't distinguish between an "officially announced release date"
> > > and a projected target release date isn't worth wasting my breath on.
> >
> > It seems you underestimate the public effects of release management
> > announcements.
> >
> > Nearly none of your users read d-d-a.
> >
> > They read the media.
> >
> > E.g. in Germany the most popular online media for computer related news
> > is heise.de [1]. And their latest news regarding Debian was "Completion
> > of Debian sarge delayed again" [2].
>
> ... in an article that is full of factual errors.
>
> Example:
>
> "Mitte März gab es erst den dritten Release Candidate für Sarge;"[...]
That's the only error I can find.
Since you are saying it "is full of factual errors", can you list a few
more errors you've found?
> That's not correct; we had the third release candidate for
> debian-installer around that time. While the two are related, Sarge is a
> lot more than just debian-installer.
>
> If they can't even get such basic things right, I don't think it's fair
> to say that there's a problem here which the RMs can do something about.
The release team has said in announcements before the second announced
release date for sarge that the whole release schedule was based on the
installer schedule.
For a casual reader of d-d-a it might not be obvious that this has
changed.
If people misunderstand announcements it's not always only the fault of
the people.
> On the other hand, note that the release announcements do help in
> getting us focused to do whatever is necessary to make the release
> happen. Without those things, I for one would probably have tuned out a
> while ago, because "nothing happened".
>
> Now choose what's more important for you: having a developer focused on
> fixing the release and actually making it happen, or having the mass
> media not saying things that be bad for the image Debian has with some
> people.
Yes, there are examples where this vaporware approach of setting target
dates that aren't reached works.
But in the long term, people get used to them and do no longer trust
them. And in my impression even Debian developers aren't too dumb for
recognizing how many announced dates were missed.
And the image of Debian for users and potential users of Debian is
actually important - it might influence their decision whether the will
try or continue to use Debian.
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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