On Sun, Feb 18, 2001 at 12:57:53PM +0000, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> Why suddenly change the model like this?
The model's already changed: we went from
stable
frozen (temporary)
unstable
to
stable
testing (permanent)
unstable
> Would the following not be
> better and perhaps less confusing, still using a four-tier setup:
>
> stable frozen testing unstable
>
> Initially, frozen is set to be the same as testing, and we can allow a
> two-week period for testing to catch up to unstable as things are
> built for multiple arches etc. Then during the freeze, uploads to
> frozen get installed into testing, if there are no problems, they get
> moved into frozen. Then stable and unstable continue as before. I
> think that it saves people having to start using (and abusing)
> experimental.
This is somewhat confused.
"testing" is maintained by a script, it is not uploaded to directly. What
you describe would be mostly sensibly named:
stable testing frozen unstable
where stable is updated as it is now, testing is updated from frozen
instead of unstable by scripts, and both frozen and unstable can be
uploaded to directly. At release, frozen is removed entirely, testing
becomes the new stable, and is also forked into a new testing which is
once again updated from unstable.
The problem with doing something like this is what I described before:
bugfix uploads need to go to both frozen & unstable, which causes problems
for the autobuilders.
It also introduces a temporary distribution, which is a nusiance to
maintain.
And in truth, it doesn't seem much of a win over just using
stable testing unstable experimental
in those roles. The only benefit it gets is that the few people who fork
their packages during the freeze don't have to file a bug report to get
their package moved into unstable from experimental (and as far as the
ftpmasters are concerned, that's a fairly trivial bug to resolve with
"heidi").
> (b) People believe that the next freeze is not going to be another 18
> months away.
The last freeze began thirteen months ago, I don't see why you'd be
worried that the next one would be further away.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``_Any_ increase in interface difficulty, in exchange for a benefit you
do not understand, cannot perceive, or don't care about, is too much.''
-- John S. Novak, III (The Humblest Man on the Net)
Attachment:
pgp2qxcS6nbeI.pgp
Description: PGP signature