Re: XFree vs. xorg
On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 09:04:31PM +0800, John Summerfield wrote:
> Brian Nelson wrote:
>
> >On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 09:20:28AM +0800, John Summerfield wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Other vendors switched to X.org at the time of the licence change.
> >>Presumably they're supporting newer hardware now than Debian will with
> >>Sarge when it's released, and Sarge++ is probably three or four years
> >>away.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Mark my words, Sarge+1 will not take 3 or 4 years to release. 1 to 1.5
> >years is my estimate. 2 years, tops.
> >
> >
> >
> How do you justify that pov? At present, we have more platforms than
> ever before, more packages than every before. What's changed to
> alleviate the log cycle time we've had so far?
The installer. It finally doesn't suck and won't have to be rewritten
again for the next release.
The installer has actually been the biggest thorn in Debian's side for
the past few releases. Development of the old installer
("boot-floppies") was supposed to end with potato. However, it became
evident during woody's development cycle that the new installer
("debian-installer") would not be ready in a reasonable amount of time
for woody's release. So, that development had to be put on hold while
boot-floppies was resurrected and painfully updated to support all 11
arches supported by woody (up from 6 for potato).
debian-installer is huge improvement in modularity and maintainability
over boot-floppies. For releases following sarge, it will not be a
major impediment for release, for the first time in ages.
Furthermore, sarge's release required some other major changes, like the
GCC 2.95->3.x transition. There is nothing comparable on the horizon
for sarge+1.
--
You win again, gravity!
Reply to: