Steve Langasek a écrit :
source packages that need to be updated! As a result, the release team asks that the maintainers refrain from uploads of these packages for any reason without coordination with the release team, until this transition completes; uncoordinated uploads will most likely lead to yourpackage being removed from testing to let the transition complete.
So it seems that unstable is again, as before the release, half-frozen. Maybe we could change its name?
Seriously, I begin to consider that as a real problem. I am not blaming you, release maintainers, you are doing your job. From my point of view, we have a real problem because of our testing + unstable scheme.
It has been introduced after potato to be able to continue the developement in unstable while testing is frozen, but it seems to have the contrary effect now. It render the life of the release managers difficult, the security team has problems to move packages from unstable to testing, and britney suffers of memory problems.
On the other hand testing is a way for out users to have a not-so-unstable, and not-so-outdated system. It is also a way to have our distribution well tested. However, from what I heared, a lot of users currently consider testing has broken, due to a lot of missing packages. gimp-print for example has been removed from testing during one month or so, rending the printing from gimp impossible.
So I would like to propose to drop testing during a limited period of time (let's say 4 months) after the release, to have the time to make all the necessary big transitions. If the period of time is limited, the stable distribution will not be too out-dated, so that it won't be a problem for our users. Moreover, that will make them stopping complaining about Debian, I would like to stop hearing "unstable is more stable than testing, Debian is getting bad".
I know that it is to late for etch, but that could apply for etch + 1. What do you think?
Bye, Aurelien -- .''`. Aurelien Jarno | GPG: 1024D/F1BCDB73 : :' : Debian developer | Electrical Engineer `. `' aurel32@debian.org | aurelien@aurel32.net `- people.debian.org/~aurel32 | www.aurel32.net