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Re: post-release package update policy



>
>> From: Marcus Daniels <marcus@sysc.pdx.edu>
>> Subject: Re: post-release package update policy
>> 
>> I fail to see the point of a release unless `it' is a known, frozen
>> set of packages.  If this isn't feasible (which it appears may well
>> be the case), then just don't ever make releases.  
>
>Yes, suppose Debian 0.93R6 had been frozen as an "official release" last week,
>as some have wished.  The last couple of days of debian-changes tell me that
>versions of two new packages are available now whose only modification was to
>include new or improved documentation.  Another update for a network package
>included significant security improvements.  I think anyone downloading a
>release today -- including CD-ROM vendors and new users -- would want a Debian
>with those new packages, not last week's hypothetical "release," however
>official.
>
>Of course, that assumes that no new problems have inadvertantly been introduced
>in the new packages; and that is the rub.  
>
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.
Those folks that are running mirror sites or building CDs would, I expect,
find access to the bandwidth to take their own snapshot of the system.
>From the descriptions I have seen in the other posts on this topic some
additional work is required but little additional disk space need be required.

Later, Dale



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