Re: post-release package update policy
> These kind of esthetic arguments miss the point. If I start with the base
> system and begin working my way from admin to x11 in the packages. If it
> takes me several weeks to get to x11, packages there have grown and dragged
> other packages along potentialy all the way back to base. This process has a
> strong possibility of never comming to closure. If some file structure can
> be made to remain fixed at any arbitrary point in time (say for instance the
> release date) then some kind of complete system can be constructed from the
> packages in this "static" file structure. At this point the system
> administrator can then look toward the bleeding edge of the distribution for
> those features or fixes that may enhance the system.
Disk space and limited bandwidth are valid points, and I hadn't thought of the
"dragging along" problem. I wonder if the latter wouldn't be a quite rare
problem, however, not a "strong possibility," since I guess it is rare for a
package update to make its dependencies more stringent (i.e., requiring a more
recent version of another package). I might well be wrong, it is only a guess.
By the way, are you saying that improved documentation and increased network
security is an "esthetic" improvement in Debian? Or else what do you mean?
Reply to: