Re: Bits from the Release Team - Kicking off Wheezy
On Sun, May 01, 2011 at 09:43:51PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Sun, May 01, 2011 at 08:55:25PM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> > (1) you'll split the userbase, some of the users will use rolling
> > instead of testing, and during the freeze we're very interested
> > about our users to test testing. It's actually the period where it
> > matters the most.
>
> Just for the sake of the argument, that is not granted. The above is
> true only if the user base remains constant. Arguably, rolling is
> appealing to users of other existing "rolling" distributions which are
> based on Debian anyhow (name one) and, who knows, also to current users
> of release-every-6-months derivatives who want more support on all the
> archive. Yes, mine is speculation, but it seems to be in the same
> ballpark of a hidden assumption in the above.
Well, we've heard about that argument before, namely when Ubuntu was
created. I think we've had enough history to know that Ubuntu users
don't directly make Debian better, and certainly not at a fast pace.
I don't see why rolling users would benefit to testing for the same
reasons[1]. The key point is, when we do need rolling users to help
testing (namely during the freeze), it's when rolling is the most
different from testing. So when the users from rolling actually don't
help. The sole "benefit" from rolling is that unstable would probably
end up less broken the two months just after a release.
Also I skipped an important point out, name it (3), the entry points.
unstable can't be the antechamber of testing and rolling at the same
time. If unstable is diverted to rolling, it means a t-p-u like setup to
feed testing. But that sucks, quality from t-p-u isn't as good as
unstable, this is a really frowned upon way to feed testing, that the RT
doesn't like to be forced to use. And if you say unstable feeds testing,
then you'll need a dedicated feed channel for rolling, and you'll end-up
with either less test for rolling (since this distribution say
unstable/rolling has less users), hence rolling will suck, _OR_ it'll
divert users from unstable and we're back to unstable being t-p-u
without the name, which isn't acceptable.
[1] Of course since "both" are under the Debian umbrella it'll
/probably/ be a lot less politicized than the Debian<->Ubuntu
relations.
--
·O· Pierre Habouzit
··O madcoder@debian.org
OOO http://www.madism.org
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