Re: Question to all candidates about stable point releases
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 09:09:01AM +0100, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote:
> Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:
> > Why would the existence of sarge point releases inspire confidence in
> > our release cycle?
>
> Because the announcement title reads "Debian GNU/Linux $foo
> updated". Sounds good for users, updated distributions are nice.
But unstable and testing are updated daily, with new shiny stuff. Point
releases contain for 99% fixes for embarassing bugs that we as a project
failed to squash before the real release. It's great that we fixed them,
still, of course.
> > Why *should* it inspire confidence? The two processes are almost
> > entirely unconnected.
>
> I know that, but most user don't know that. Public opinion is largely
> dictated by the usual newstickers - and a regular appearance with "Debian
> releases/updates $BLA" is good to give the impression that Debian is
> active.
> I know that some non-Debian people actually ask questions like "I
> heard Debian has split and is dead, what will happen in the future?"
> From time to time, just because Debian's PR work sucks so much.
How about instead dominating the news tickers by reporting more
noteworthy news? "Debian launches beta of new graphical installer" is a
very noteworthy news item IMHO. Compare what really happened when g-i
had its first test release:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/13/0550229
Thanks to an anonymous slashdot reader, at least slashdot picked it up.
I didn't read about it much on other sites.
Previous DPLs have attempted in the past[1], and having more active
interaction with the media is in my platform.
--Jeroen
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/03/msg00191.html
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
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