Re: We might need a better wording for our release page
Ananthu C V wrote:
> Justin Rye wrote:
>> We picked "version" there largely because it's so vague (barely a
>> step up from saying that "there are three things"), while all the more
>> specific words are over-technical and/or misleading. Are you saying
>> that suites aren't "versions" of Debian because (e.g) "stable" can
>> contain gcc12 one year and gcc13 the next? I don't really follow that
>> argument, since after all it's also true of "sid" and (until it's released)
>> "trixie". Meanwhile people use "versions" to describe plenty of things
>> that aren't differentiated by age: "vim is a version of vi",
>
> It's not about making the terminology technical, but that the "version"
> usage in such a context can make it even more confusing, or so I feel.
> My understanding, and what I know to be the general understanding, is that
> people refer to 11.0 etc. when they say "Debian versions". The names stable,
> testing etc. are aliases, rather, instead of versions. Of course, that's
> just what I understand and if that is not the case, please feel free to
> continue with version. The reason why I raised the point is because the
> rationale of the thread is to avoid ambiguity and I find adding version to
> the mix makes it even more confusing. If that's just a "me" thing, it is
> not a problem at all.
Arguing about this won't get us anywhere unless we can find an
alternative. Throwing out some wild ideas:
Debian is installable in three main forms (three "suites", also
called releases or distributions): stable, testing and unstable.
Debian provides three different installable distributions, the
stable, testing and unstable suites.
The stable, testing, and unstable "suites" (also called releases
or distributions) represent three different aspects of Debian:
Any takers?
>> "Live on the edge" is in the current webpage; I'd have said if we're going to
>> avoid expressions with unfortunate associations then we might also want to
>> avoid "the bleeding edge" as glamourising/trivialising violence. Perhaps we
>> could say "run by developers and users who like living dangerously"?
>
> The "of technology" part offsets issues, as it makes it clear what it is referring
> to.
The problem isn't that the thing it's pointing at involves any
real bloodshed, it's that this imagery is being used to express the
idea of "cool and attractive". If we're replacing "living on the
edge" for fear of triggering bad associations it doesn't seem much of
an improvement.
> But yes, that was just a top-of-the-head placeholder and better wording
> welcome. I find your new wording also quite heavy (similar context, ambiguous
> wording :p), but hey, at this point the problem might as well be with just me!
Here we've got a couple of alternatives - Donald's suggestion "on the
developing edge of technology" looks to me like another good way of
doing it.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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