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Re: problems with the concept of unstable -> testing



On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 09:31:13AM +1100, Russell Coker wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 December 2008 10:06, Romain Beauxis <toots@rastageeks.org> 
> wrote:
> > > Is that important? Unstable is frozen for nearly 1/2 year now, that's a
> > > problem we should try to solve if we don't want to degrade ourselves to
> > > a server-only distribution.
> >
> > 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.
> 
> I think it would be good if we could take time to stabilise the server version 
> while continuing to work on development versions.
> 
> The Fedora vs RHEL model that Red Hat uses has some benefits.

The Fedora and RHEL is:

Fedora: a somewhat equivalent of Debian Testing. The rules for updating 
a package even after a version is released are way more laxed than 
Debian Stable.

RHEL: Much less software. You can't expect to maintain the whole 
archive of Debian Stable for 5 or 7 years without it. There are many 
packages I miss in the CentOS archive.

Also note that none of those distribution has a distinction between 
"server" and "desktop" in the release cycle management. Ubuntu has a 
"server" variant, but it is merely a way to package different packages 
and defaults into the installation CD. RHEL has a distinction between 
"server" and "desktop", but I figure that this is because supporting a 
server instance costs more (or that people are willing to pay more for 
it).

This is somewhat like Ubuntu's LTS: it is a guarantee for 5 years, but 
only for Ubuntu's Main, and not for Ubuntu's Universe.

And I figure that sure, the model of RHEL would work well for us. Only if 
the Stable release includes *my* pet packages. Just as much as: 'Sure we 
can release Lenny tommorow. Just as long as *my* pet bugs get fixed'.


Regards,

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