On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 12:43, Debian Support (Gary) wrote: > Case-and-point: Try and follow this mess hypathetical mess: > > "2.4.18r1 is not as stable as 2.4.18, but 2.4.18r1 contains a patch > that allows you to upgrade to 2.4.19 easier, therefore using 2.4.18r1 > makes sense over using 2.4.18." > > Translate that using objects names instead of version stamps... > > "Cat is not as stable as Dog, but Cat contains a patch that allows you > to upgrade to Mouse easier, therefore using Cat makes sense over > using Dog." > > I don't know about you, but the first part might be understood, but > its clearly something you need to read a couple times to make sure > you got it right. The second example is MUCH clearer. Actually, I find the latter example MUCH more confusing. 18 -> 18r1 -> 19. As opposed to Dog -> Cat -> Mouse. And then what do we do if an 18r2 is needed? Dog -> Cat -> Ferret -> Mouse? Next thing you know we'll have to have an animal reference guide just to list some version names. I think the current naming scheme for Debian is quite clear. We have Debian 2.2 (Potato). Redmond has DOS 7.0 (aka Windows 95) (Chicago). The only tags that I think should be revised are, as was mentioned before, stable, testing, and unstable. Unstable especially is very scary sounding to most users. Yet most Linux users using other distros (like RH, Mandrake, etc) are using the same packages that we're using in Sid. I liked the earlier suggestion about server, home, developer. With a bit of work and discussion, I think a derivative of that could make a good naming convention that isn't all that scary to newbies. -Alex
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