Re: Debian concordance
On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 05:44:33AM -0500, Ian Murdock wrote:
> I don't know if you release this, but this is exactly what Red Hat
> says too. "RHEL is free, because we provide the source code.
> Binaries aren't important to free software." Well, they're pretty
> damned important to Red Hat, to the tune of about $200 million
> per year (and growing at an impressive rate too). No
> wonder they don't want anyone else to think they're important.
As I explained when Joey made this same interpretation, I obviously don't
believe that binaries are unimportant. Binaries are the most important
transport format for getting software into the hands of users. However,
they aren't a very useful tool for software development collaboration, and
work to make binaries more universal does not promote the development of
open source software.
> Sure, I've never disputed that. I'd argue, though, that your release
> process *was* part of it. Now that sarge is out, we have an opportunity to
> fix the problem at its source, rather than continuing to provide a
> workaround. Why not take advantage of that?
Debian and Ubuntu already are taking advantage of the space created by the
Sarge release, by coordinating major transitions, and feeding more Ubuntu
features and packages into Debian. But if what you're suggesting is that
the Sarge release means that Ubuntu should stop making its own releases
based on unstable, that doesn't make sense for our developers or our users.
You seem to believe that Ubuntu's approach to releasing was a one-time
workaround for a delayed Sarge release, but that has never been the case.
Ubuntu 5.10 will be released in October of this year, based on the breezy
development tree, regardless of any pending discussions about Debian's
release strategy.
> You're being dramatic again. I'm not suggesting Ubuntu should track a
> Debian stable that's released "whenever it's ready". I'm saying Ubuntu
> should base on stable if and only if Debian can fix the release management
> problems. If, 12 or 18 months from today, Debian seems no closer to fixing
> these problems, Debian will deserve what it gets, and I'll be Ubuntu's
> biggest chearleader.
In this case, your suggestion is entirely hypothetical, and we'll discuss
this when there's something concrete to discuss. The world could be a very
different place in 12 or 18 months, and we aren't going to plan the next 2-3
Ubuntu releases based on an oversimplified proposal to improve Debian's
release cycle.
--
- mdz
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