Re: problems with the concept of unstable -> testing
Romain Beauxis wrote:
> You can't get both recent *and* stabilized software. For a solid release
> to be done, one needs to hold new improvements for a while.
Yes. But there is a bunch of non-DD people that strongly want to use Debian
and prefer the recent software over the stabilized one. With the new
laptops coming out every two weeks, having the latest kernel, Xorg or hal
is no caprice, it's needed…
Debian Testing before the freeze is satisfying for most geeks that run their
own laptop only, and not a great bunch of desktops.
> I am proud that we can take this time freely from any commercial
> constraints. The main problem is that this needs to be explained to users.
> Most likely, people want both recent versions and stability, which is just
> impossible. (and yes, these sort of issues happen in Ubuntu).
Define "people"… I guess that with various user's types, you get various
hopes.
> Besides, I don't see the polemic with this "upload to unstable or
> experimental" issue. I get the impression that some developpers confuse
> their own comfort with the interest of the distribution somehow.
>
>
> Romain
Maybe the problem comes from the time needed to package and test a new
upstream version.
Look for example at the upcoming KDE4.2 : KDE4.0 ("public beta") went out in
january 2008. Since then and 'because' of the unstable-to-testing pipe,
KDE4.0 has only lived in experimental with the big fat blinking
red "WARNING" sign above.
KDE4 was then hard to test for "testing" users that don't play with
apt-pinning and KDE4 will not be part of Lenny (even if it could…), roughly
15 months after its release.
That's not a problem from Debian stable users, who need a "stable before
all" release. But for the FLOSS community and the geeky users, I guess that
it is in fact a problem.
With a less jungle experimental which you could trust as the unfrozen
unstable or with a constantly unfrozen unstable, this would not be an
issue.
Anyway, time to sleep.
'night !
OdyX
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