Re: We might need a better wording for our release page
Donald Norwood wrote on Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 07:51:11PM -0500:
> ... snip ...
> Would I be understanding that we would offer Debian Suites:
>
> * Stable Suite -represented only as the Stable Suite
> * Testing Suite - represented only as the NewStable(?) Suite
> * UnStable Suite - represented only as The Sid(UnStable) Suite
> * Experimental Suite - represented only as RC-Buggy
>
> I think that would allow us to Grandfather Release/codenames at the same time.
Nobody (so far) was suggesting that we should throw away the concept
of codenames; they are, after all, the only way of getting an apt
source that will have a consistent set of packages permanently
available regardless of what's currently labelled "stable".
(We *could* in principle get the same effect by allowing the use of
version numbers wherever we currently allow codenames; as far as I
know the main reason we don't is that historically, when e.g., Debian
3.1 "sarge" was released, the new testing suite would be created as
"etch" many months before it was decided whether the next version
number was going to be 3.2 or 4.0.)
> Release: $X; $Suite
What we *are* saying is not all suites are releases. Talking about
the testing or unstable or experimental "release" encourages people
to assume that we're declaring them ready for use on production
servers. Calling them "distributions" is less dangerously confusing,
but still a bit confusing.
> There would still be confusion on for example Debian Experimental.
>
> I am open to correction if I completely missed the intention/interpretation,
> there are a lot of differing release/suite/version notes pretty much everywhere
> which I am pulling this thought process from.
Yes, so much of our documentation talks in terms of "releases" and
"distributions" instead of "suites" that it's hard to imagine sorting
this out properly.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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