Joseph Smidt wrote: > I know I am in for an argument, but I think it is a good > question. I'm sure many of you have read Mark's blog: > http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/56. It says 76% of Debian > users run unstable and probably a fair fraction of the rest run testing. What percentage run stable? (Hint - the sum of that and the unstable users may total > 100%.) I have one workstation running unstable (because it's an amd64), one running stable with an unstable chroot, a physics analysis cluster running stable, and a home computer running stable (because my wife hates it when things break on upgrade). > I think we all really love running unstable. It is very fun > because it is exciting and sometimes unpredictible. On a computer used for playing or for maintaining Debian packages, this is fun. On a cluster supporting other users, or a computer behind a modem, or a computer that needs to have a reliably constant base of installed software, definitely not. Forgive me if I put words in your mouth, but you seem to have the impression that typical Debian users have only a single desktop machine that they enjoy upgrading, breaking, and fixing. Maybe this was true 10 years ago, before GNU/Linux had any recognition as a professional operating system. Now, at least for a significant minority of users, this is not the case. > 1. Those who maintain Debian love unstable. It is the OS that offers the > most freedom. Maintaining a Stable and Oldstable seem to distract from the > focus of an ever evolving Unstable. I have an email from a developer I > will not name that says he/she is not looking forward to having to > maintain multiple versions of the same package in several different > Debian snapshots when he/she could be worrying about one. As far as Debian is concerned, a developer does in fact only have to worry about one version of the package - the one in unstable. (If s/he wants this package ever to enter testing or stable, there are additional constraints - but these constraints mainly involve having no RC bugs, which packages should not have anyway.) Granted s/he can put forth additional effort to maintain a backport, or to help the security team with security fixes, but these are optional on his/her part. I recognize that said developer may have an employer who wants the package maintained on other Debian versions too. But in that case, said developer is at least getting paid for the work of doing so. > 2. Testing would be a better distro. The time and effort that goes > into Freezing, maintaining Stable and Oldstable, could be pulled into > making testing a better distro for those who want new software, without > the risk of running Unstable. Those who enjoy trying to live on the > bleeding edge, who don't want to bleed to death. Testing is updated continually and there are many people who need a stable platform with only minimal changes (security fixes) that can be relied on to last for a year or more. > 3. The freeze seems to cause more stress then happiness. Depends upon who you ask. I am very happy that Debian produces a stable reliable platform every 1.5 - 3 years. I am more than willing to trade off the annoyance of having to deal with coordinated library transitions, a few months' freeze, etc. The release managers surely get a lot more stress from it than I as a "normal" DD do; but on the other hand, the release must make them correspondingly more happy, or else (being volunteers) they would work on something else. > 4. Let's face it, it does both Debian and Desktop users who want a > constantly updating, "Easy as Windows to use", stable distro a favor to > send them to Ubuntu. Debian will stop getting harassed how Ubuntu's > stable is so much nicer for users then Debian's. On the other, it does > them a favor to go where life is made easier for them. (I am not saying > Ubuntu stable is better then Debian's Stable, just the type of users who > like a "training wheels" distro that has stable updates every 6 months > is never going to be happy with Debian's Stable and Debian could do > better off not having them harassing Debian over everything they like or > dislike) Send them to Ubuntu, and let them come back when they want to > run an Unstable style system. Very, very few Ubuntu users run their > "Unstable" snapshot. Those types of people should be sent here. If your main point here is that people who complain a lot prefer Ubuntu/stable over Debian/stable, then I hope you are right; that's fine with me! But I don't see how this supports your argument to dump Debian/stable. Did you mean to imply that Ubuntu/stable is an acceptable replacement for Debian/stable? At least for me, this is not true. Most Ubuntu stable releases are only supported for a relatively short time, which is not long enough for me; and most Ubuntu packages are in "universe" where (AFAIK) they only get support in a stable release on a "best-effort" basis by a small and overworked MOTU team. regards, -- Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@princeton.edu> Physics Department WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/ Princeton University GPG: public key ID 4F83C751 Princeton, NJ 08544
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